Word: istanbul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...launched an offensive along the border, where Turkey already has some 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, F-16 fighter jets and attack helicopters. On Monday, a convoy of 50 military vehicles, loaded with soldiers and weapons, was seen heading toward the border, according to the Associated Press. In Istanbul, the capital Ankara and the port city of Mersin, thousands of protestors, wearing black ribbons and waving the Turkish flag, denounced the PKK attack. Across the country, public events and celebrations (including a concert by the American pop star Beyonce in Istanbul) were canceled to mourn the army deaths...
...burning of churches and the killing of a nun in Somalia. Benedict was quick to turn to the "spirit of Assisi" in trying to calm the waters after his Regensberg speech, inviting Rome-based Muslim diplomats for a meeting in the Vatican and visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, where he prayed shoulder-to-shoulder with the Turkish imam. Though tensions remain, a letter earlier this month addressed to the Pope and other Christian leaders, signed by 138 prominent Muslim clerics and scholars, is seen as a potential breakthrough in relations between Islam and Christianity...
...wanted to lift the ban on headscarves, but democracy is as much about style as it is about institutions. It would be better if [Prime Minister Erdogan] was less dismissive of secularist concerns in this country," Hakan Altinay, head of the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy group in Istanbul, told TIME. Lifting the ban may be a good idea, he said, but should be combined with a broader effort to liberalize other parts of the constitution, including Turkey's draconian speech laws. He urged Erdogan to be less confrontational in his approach. That would, he added, help convince...
...particularly religious," said Mehmet Yilmaz, a store owner in an up-market Istanbul district that backs the secular CHP. "But my business is doing well under this government. The Turkish lira is stable. That's what counts for me. Honestly, I don't think there's any chance we are going to turn into Iran." Sociologist Nilufer Gole says the AKP has become Turkey's new "centrist, democratic" political alternative...
...Eksioglu himself is an example of how the AKP is drawing from an ever wider pool of supporters. Traditionally, AKP supporters hailed from central Anatolia or the sprawling, working-class suburbs of big cities like Istanbul. But Eksioglu is conspicuously uptown. His family's property-development firm has flourished under AKP rule (it has put up four buildings since 2002, vs. none in the previous political term), thanks to a stable economy and lower interest rates that have made buying homes easier for ordinary residents of Istanbul. He now owns an apartment on Baghdad Avenue, the smartest address...