ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) — Twitter has been the scene of a bizarre Turkish hashtag war between the mayor of Ankara and, well, a lot of other social networkers.
The drama began Sunday when Ibrahim Melih Gokcek, the man who has been mayor of Turkey’s capital for more than a decade, accused a reporter from the BBC’s Turkish service of being a foreign agent.
“Who is @selingirit? BBC’s reporter in Turkey,” Gokcek wrote in a series of English-language tweets.
“Led by England, they are trying to collapse our economy via agents hired, both nationally and internationally. They are dreaming for Turkey to be the ‘Sick man of Europe’ once again. Here is a concrete proof.”
The BBC issued a statement Monday expressing concern about what it described as threats issued by Turkish officials against a BBC correspondent.
Photos: Demonstrations in Turkey
Protest in Turkey continue
Turkey’s football fans join protest
A wedding amid the tear gas in Turkey
Gokcek is an elected official from the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which is led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since an unprecedented explosion of street protests against Erdogan erupted more than three weeks ago, the prime minister and his deputies have accused demonstrators of being terrorists and vandals organized by an alleged shadowy foreign conspiracy Erdogan has labeled “the interest lobby.”
Gokcek appeared determined to prove this Sunday via Twitter.
Shortly after accusing Girit of being a spy, he announced the creation of the Turkish hashtag #INGILTEREADINAAJANLIKYAPMASELINGIRIT, which translates roughly to “Don’t be a spy in the name of England Selin Girit.”
Then, the mayor of Ankara launched a campaign to make the hashtag one of Twitter’s worldwide trends.
For the next several hours, he cheered on his followers as the accusation gained online traction with messages like “Keep going Turkiye. Our Hash Tag is ranked 2th. Must place to number 1. This will be our answer to BBC.”
Within hours, the mayor’s Twitter campaign appeared to have backfired.
Online opponents began mobilizing their own hashtag in response to the mayor of Ankara.
They began retweeting the hashtag #provokatormelihgokçek (Melih Gokcek is a provocateur).
By Sunday night in Turkey, #provokatormelihgokcek had replaced the mayor’s hashtag attacking Girit on Twitter’s list of world-wide trends.
Gokcek responded by threatening anyone in the world who retweeted the provocateur hashtag with legal action.
“My lawyer is going to sue everyone one by one who tweets #ProvokatorMelihGokcek No one can get away with anything because Turkey is a country of law,” the mayor of Ankara announced on Twitter Sunday night.
As of 10am in Istanbul Monday, the #provokatormelihgokcek hashtag was ranked as the second most popular worldwide trend on Twitter.
The BBC issued a statement expressing concern about what it called “the continued campaign of the Turkish authorities to discredit the BBC and intimidate its journalists.”
“A large number of threatening messages have been sent to one of our reporters, who was named and attacked on social media by the Mayor of Ankara,” wrote Peter Horrocks, Global News Director of the BBC.
Horrocks maintained that BBC reporters were committed to providing “impartial and independent journalism.” He called on the Turkish government to use “proper channels” to make comments and complaints to the organization.
For the last several years, press freedoms organizations have published a number of reports expressing alarm about the Turkish government’s record of jailing journalists.
“The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has waged one of the world’s biggest crackdowns on press freedom in recent history,” wrote the Committee to Protect Journalists in a 2012 report. Reporters Without Borders has labeled Turkey among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, since scores of media workers are currently in prison, many of them awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.
THE MAN WHO SWAM ACROSS FROM TURKEY TO CYPRUS IS NOW READY FOR ENGLISH CHANNEL!
Alper Sunacoglu is a sportsman who will make a big splash and will be talked about alot in the sports community around the world soon. He is a legend of his country.
Erdal Acet, who is one of the trainers of Alper, was the man who broke the world record by swimming across English Channel with a record of 9 hours 2 minutes. Since his childhood, Alper who is a committed follower of Erdal Acet, now going to England to show his respect to his trainer and he is also determined to break the world record of Mr. Trent Grimsey, who also broke the record world record as well as Alper’s trainer Erdal’s record .
Now let’s have a look at what Alper has got to share with us 🙂
Who is Alper ? Alper is one of the most famous national swimmers of Turkey who swam the distance of 78 km from Anamur, from Turkey to Cyprus in smashing 26 hours 15 minutes and moreover he did not use the safety cage. He broke this world record by swimming in a perfect high speed on 4th of September 2010. On 23th of April, 2011 He also swam across Istanbul Bosporus top to buttom from Sarıyer to Üsküdar, a distance of 30 km in 2 hours 25 minutes. After all that he swam perpendicular Dardanel Bosporus from one end to another in 7 hours 12 minutes by ignoring the south wind storm blowing at 8 force. Related with above mentioned successes, he had many interviews, commentated on news both nationally and internationally. His records were also confirmed and announced by Wikipedia to all over the world. The record holder swimmer, Alper now has a target to break a world record by swimming English Channel in 6 hours 45 minutes. If he achieves this, he will gain the title of fastest marathon swimmer in the world, then again this will enable him to secure the world record on behalf of Turkey and Turks.
Here is the Exclusive interview with world famous swimmer, Alper Sunacoglu.
EDITOR: Could you please tell us little bit about yourself?
ALPER: Thank you. I was born in Istanbul and originally I’m an Albanian. When I was about five years old when we immigrated to Adana because of my father’s business. My father and my mother is from Istanbul, I’m from Adana due to the simple fact that I lived all my childhood there. J Currently I’m working in a corporate logistics company as a project manager/ coordinator, A degree certified customs broker and work as a consultant.
EDITOR:You undersigned records which requires significant performance and courage. To swim from Mersin to Cyprus in 26 hours, to swim the straits from the whole length even in the winter season, I mean all of these successes and records do not seem logically possible to many people around the world. I would like you to share with us your journey, your adventure starting from your childhood. How was Alper’s childhood? How was his youth? Why and how come you broke all this world records and accomplishments years after years ? We kindly appreciate If you could tell us all these processes.
ALPER: I had a very naughty childhood and youth with full of troubles which caused lots of complaints from our neighbors. One day I was at top of a roof with a cap, toy pistol and slingshot in my hands, another day I was on top of trees and sometimes even had a fight with gangs. Once upon a time, as far as I can remember I climbed on a pine tree and could not get down and had to wait for the fire brigade to come and rescue me. As you can clearly see, I had a childhood full of adventures. I learned and started to swim when I was five year old. I tried variety of sports such as karate, taekwondo, judo, handball, basketball. However due to my fickleness I did not continue all of these sports. Now as it stands, only pentathlon and swimming is an indispensable part of my sport life. I will still perform these two sports until my health, breath and my power enables me to do so. My grandfather had a major effect in my life and he always said that ‘ Your blood and soul is coming from Ottoman Empire and you are a core grandchild of the daughter of Magnificent Suleyman and Sokullu Mehmed Pasha and your forefathers are the people of that you should really feel full proud of ‘I think that those words were so powerful words which effected my unconscious mind’. I have also listened many of these narratives with a big pleasure J . My grades at school were not very good however I was more interested with history lessons. I thought that our forefathers ride on horses to many distant places, conquered so many countries and came back again by travelling over hundreds even thousands of kilometers. This meant to me that, humankind can walk, run and can even swim these distances if they really wish. Thus, this is how my idea of marathon swimming started. My courage comes from my genetic code and my success comes from the faith of the following sentence. ‘If mankind really and honestly wants to walk, run and swim those distances then this can be achieved.’ I’m also a little bit lucky because most of the famous marathon swimmers are from Adana and I had the chance to be inspired by those swimmers. I listened, watched them and prepared myself to do the best. Sanrı Kardesler who is the famous for the contribution to Adana swimming sports and the deceased swimmer Ayhan Karatas had a big efforts on me . In this regard, once more I want to express my gratitude to them.
EDITOR : Don’t you get bored and get hungry at sea over many hours of swimming and are you not really afraid of sharks? Did you ever face any dangerous circumstances at sea?
ALPER: Of course I did, while I was swimming long distances, I got bored , it is hard sometimes, I had a terrible headaches, sometimes toothache and sometimes I became semi conscious. So, you have different stages, the sportsmen who swim marathon know that after you swim three hours, you face up different stages both in your body and in your mind. If you have decayed tooth , first this starts to ache then headache starts and after that semi conscious and insobriety takes place. If you can not concentrate well enough then you will be defeated to the water and give up the marathon. However, I visit the place of where I will dive into the water and prepare my unconscious mind to the marathon by saying myself that ‘ I will enter to the water from this place and will rise across the seaside’ Unless any unexpected weather conditions occur or totally unexpected accident occurs, I never think to return back or dismiss the trial of record. You asked me whether if I get hungry at sea, and of course, I get hungry, there is a boat and team members that escorts me and my trainers calculate at what time I need to eat, they throw me liquid food bottle to the sea accordingly. When it comes to sharks they are the ruler of sea, so I am afraid of them and they are also stronger than me in the sea. But I never come up against such a life threatening danger up to now except some minor incidents.
EDITOR: Have you got any sponsorship?
ALPER: I had a lots of sponsorship up until now. Adana City Council, IHH Charitable Foundation of Humankind aid, Sisli Council and Mayor of Sisli – Mr. Mustafa Sarı Gul , Ünsped Gümrük Müşavirliği A.S – customs broker company and precious businessman Yusuf Bulut ÖZTÜRK are my sponsors from time to time.
EDITOR: So, what are your new projects that are coming soon?
ALPER: The first project is to swim across the English Channel in less than 7 hours and break the world record. Now the last world record on this belongs to Mr. Trent Grimsey.
Secondly, swimming Naples -Capri Marathon in Italy and swimming across from Izmir to Athens are my latest upcoming projects.
EDITOR: You were on headline news on many occasions but why are you not as famous as you could imagine expected from a person at your caliber?
ALPER: I have only tried to keep everything to myself, all trial of records, projects and I did not intend to become famous up to this date. I have never had focus on and an aim or dream to be famously recognized. Actually to become famous in Turkey is very simple fact if you are on news related to your private life with a model or with a girl who is famous, then you are on, now you’re famous. But this does not suit me, my style and I do not prefer this kind of life. On any given day, if people of my country would know me, I prefer to be remembered by what I have done, with my achievements, successes and my records. And as such all news about myself has been done by valuable media members like yourselves by investigating the real truth of the news in the world by providing access me with an interview. To summarize it all, I have the opinion that if a decent media group supports me that is more than enough for me.
EDİTÖR: A personal question comes to you. Is there a time for love in this busy life. You are a healthy person and why are you not married ?
ALPER: As you say I’m really busy. I always live in a rush between business life and sports life. I can not spare a time to my private life as much as I want. So the relationship is really difficult for me and even more difficult for the other side. In addition to that, I also got married and got divorced when I was very young. At least unless I fulfill my upcoming projects, I do not consider about marriage as for now. But still it is all about destiny in the end.
EDITOR : Why don’t you have a support from government authorities although you have a good relationship with them and sincere photos with a lot of political leaders? Is this related with the social messages that you give?
ALPER: Yes, actually your question has got the answer in it. Unfortunately, I could not get any support of government administration. If they have supported me, I would like to swim from Egypt to Gaza and protest the embargo. If they support me, I can represent my country at open water races hold in different countries. Maybe Turkey is the only country which do not participate in these races. Myself and Swimming Federation delivered our messages about this issue on several occasions to the related ministry but we could not get any reply at all.
EDITOR:You wanted to swim to Imrali Island by jumping from Istanbul Bosphorus Bridge and wanted to give a message that Single State, Single Flag and Single Nation aiming to curse of the terrorism. Even Ayşe Arman – journalist had mentioned about you and many discussions have taken place in the public. Is this project on stand still? Are you really going to jump from the Istanbul Bosporus Bridge?
ALPER: Let me ask you. Do you think, is it really necessary to give this message and make this attempt when you think about the position of Turkey now. As of now, there is no terror so I do not need to curse it 🙂 anymore. In the end, to swim to Imrali is cancelled, I won’t swim. But in coming days may be I can jump from the Bosporus Bridge to give a different message. You will also hear from me for sure 🙂
EDITOR: You’re recognized by your support to disabled children and children with down syndrome. Do you have a plan or dream for them ?
ALPER : I like children and especially girls. Disabled children or children with a down syndrome is very special for me. My biggest dream is to build an Olympic pool and activity rooms for them if I have the suitable support and financial back up accordingly.
EDITOR: Let’s say “Insallah”. I hope that someone sensitive could hear your message so that they could support you to enable yourselves to break the world records and help you to realize your dreams. I hereby wish you a real success and may I also take this opportunity thank you for your sincere answers to the questions which included your personal life.
Turkey dismisses report suggesting that an Israeli delegation would hold talks about using a Turkish airbase to train for a attack in Iran.
By Elad Benari
F-15 Fighter Jet
Flash 90
Turkey dismissed on Sunday evening a news report suggesting that an Israeli delegation set to arrive in Ankara on Monday would hold talksabout Israel using a Turkish airbaseto train for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The report, which appeared in theSunday Times, said that NationalSecurity Council chairman Yaakov Amidror would offer missiles and advanced technology to Turkey in exchange for Ankara’s allowing the Israeli Air Force to use a base located approximately 1,000 miles from the border with Iran.
However, a Turkish official denied the report, telling the Turkish daily Hurriyet, “The report seems to have explained a hypothesis.”
“We have already said that the normalization of our relations will be step by step. Talking about the prospects of a military cooperation at this stage would be irrelevant. We are not there yet. We haven’t even yet appointed a new ambassador to Israel,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Amidror will head an Israeli delegation to Ankara that will begin discussions over compensation to families of those who died in clashes during the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident.
The Sunday Times report alleged that in addition to the Marmara talks, Amidror was also assigned to try to resuscitate a 1996 agreement between Jerusalem and Ankara which allowed the Israeli Air Forces to train in Turkish airspace and use the Akıncı airbase.
Turkey recently delayed the beginning of talks with Israel over compensation for the Marmara flotilla.
The talks were delayed until Monday because Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc had to accompany Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a trip to Kazakhstan on the originally scheduled date.
Arinc, who will lead the negotiating on behalf of Turkey, told the Hebrew-languageNRG news site last week that “Turkey anticipates full restoration of relations with Israel. I will lead the Turkish delegation for negotiations with Israel next week on restitution for the nine Mavi Marmara victims.”
Tags: Alexander Novak, Taner Yildiz, Turkey, Russia
ANTALYA, April 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Turkey are committed to expanding mutual investment and cooperation, aiming to bring bilateral trade to $100 billion, the Russian and Turkish energy ministers said on Saturday.
The Turkish-Russian Joint Economic Committee (JEC) held its 12th Meeting in the southern province of Antalya with the participation of Turkish Energy and Natural Sources Minister Taner Yildiz and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
Yildiz said there is good potential to increase the volume of trade from the current $34 billion to $100 billion.
Around 1,500 Russian companies currently operate in Turkey while Turkish contractors are involved in projects in Russia worth a total of $50 billion, he said, according to the Hurriyet daily.
He also said Turkish-Russian cooperation could continue in third countries.
Yildiz and Novak signed a JEC protocol prioritizing the diversification and expansion of bilateral trade and the creation of an investor-friendly environment in order to achieve the $100 billion target.
Hasan Kale is known to utilize small objects as canvases for his paintings. The Turkish artist uses fruit seeds, wings of taxidermied insects as backgrounds for his town Istaanbul. He depicts famous places and great architecture of the city. Nothing is too small for him. He can transform every small fruit into a piece of art. He uses his fingers as mediums of his work. See the videos for more information.
Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist for Al-Monitor and The Hurriyet Daily News, is the author of “Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.”
MARCH 27, 2013
It is unclear whether President Obama’s recent visit to Israel helped build the much-hoped peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Yet, in a quite unexpected move, it certainly helped build peace between Israel and Turkey.
The two countries were not at war, of course. But the longtime relationship between Turkey and Israel had fallen to one of its lowest points, after the Gaza flotilla affair of May 2010, in which nine Turks, one of them an American-Turkish citizen, were killed by Israeli commandos. Turkey had immediately asked three things from Israel: apology, compensation and the easing of the blockade on Gaza. By February 2011, Israel had made clear it would not comply, and Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador to Ankara, reducing the diplomatic relations between two countries.
Obama was wise enough to capture this moment to reconcile his two key allies in the Middle East.
Since then, political commentators had been divided on the future of Turkish-Israeli relations. Some, especially those who are on the Israeli right, argued that the “New Turkey” of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his “Islamist” cadre had proven fanatically anti-Israel, and therefore no reconciliation would ever take place unless a new government came to power in Turkey. Others, including me, noted that while the Erdogan government is strongly pro-Palestinian, it is also pragmatic and is not categorically anti-Israel. We also pointed out that Turkey had lowered relations with Israel back in 1982, to protest the annexation of East Jerusalem, but then restored full relations in 1991, in the light of the Madrid peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
The odds for an apology seemed even more distant after Erdogan’s recent condemnation of “Zionism,” which created yet another tension between Ankara and Jerusalem. But soon, Erdogan made clear that his government “recognized Israel’s existence within 1967 borders based on a two-state solution.” This probably gave Obama the grounds for persuading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to offer an “apology to the Turkish nation,” in a phone call to Erdogan.
Here in Turkey, the apology has been widely welcome, and is interpreted by the media as a diplomatic victory for the Turkish government. It is also noted that two countries now share common concerns about the bloody civil war in Syria and even the Iranian influence in the region. Obama was wise enough to capture this moment to reconcile his two key allies in the Middle East. Netanyahu and Erdogan were pragmatic enough to agree and move on.
via Progress for Turkey, Israel and the U.S. – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) — Twitter has been the scene of a bizarre Turkish hashtag war between the mayor of Ankara and, well, a lot of other social networkers.
