Turkey on Saturday vowed to continue supporting ethnic Turks of the Western Thrace region in Greece and to resolutely monitor their rights as well as their struggle to preserve their identity.

Marking the National Day of Resistance and Social Solidarity of Western Thrace, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Twitter that this day was a "turning point" in the struggle to secure their rights, as well as recognition of their identity as Turks.

It pledged to always stand with the Turks of Western Thrace, who it said "work devotedly for the exercise of these rights, especially the elected muftis."

Speaking on the issue, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop wrote on social media that: "The Turkish presence in Western Thrace is a reality that cannot be denied by anyone. We underline that on the National Day of Resistance and Social Solidarity, we will continue to be a follower of our cognates’ struggle for the recognition of their identity."

Under a 2008 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling, Western Thracian Turks' right to use the word "Turkish" in the names of associations was guaranteed, but Athens has failed to implement the ruling, effectively banning Turkish identity in the country.

Greece's Western Thrace region is home to a Muslim Turkish community of around 150,000.

In 1983, the nameplate of the Xanthi (İskeçe) Turkish Union was taken down and the group was completely banned in 1986, on the pretext that the word "Turkish" was in its name.

To apply the ECtHR decision, in 2017 the Greek parliament passed a law enabling the banned associations to apply for re-registration, but the legislation included major exceptions that complicated the applications.

Turkey has long decried Greek violations of the rights of its Muslim and Turkish minorities, from closing down mosques and shutting down schools to not letting Muslim Turks elect their own religious leaders.

These measures violate the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne as well as ECtHR verdicts, making Greece a state that flouts international law, say Turkish officials./DS

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said interest rates would be further lowered and suggested inflation would fall as a result as he underlined that Turkey’s economic woes would pass.

“We will lower interest rates as we have done already,” Erdoğan told an audience in the northern province of Giresun on Saturday.

The Turkish central bank this month halted a rate-cutting cycle after it had slashed its benchmark policy rate by 500 basis points since September to 14%.

“We are aware of the fact that inflation is a serious burden on citizens, Erdoğan said. "You know of my battle with interest rates. We are lowering interest rates and we will lower them. Know that inflation will fall too then, it will fall more," he explained.

"The exchange rate will stabilize, and inflation will fall, prices will fall too, all of these are temporary," he added.

Erdoğan has been reiterating a view that lower interest rates lead to lower inflation. He has also endorsed a new economic path that prioritizes production, exports, employment and low borrowing costs.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) says the strategy will help Turkey’s chronic currency account deficits turn to a surplus, bringing price stability.

The country’s annual inflation surged to a 19-year high of 36.1% in December, driven by last year’s slide in the Turkish lira and rising global commodity prices.

This month, the lira has settled into a tight range of around 13.5 against the United States dollar, after the government took several steps to boost public confidence and official reserves.

Turkey is due to release January inflation data this Thursday, and surveys see it reaching around 47%, which would mark the highest reading in nearly 20 years, on the back of steep price hikes.

Erdoğan on Saturday replaced the head of the statistics agency. Erhan Çetinkaya succeeded Sait Erdal Dinçer as chairperson of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the Official Gazette said, less than a year after his appointment.

Çetinkaya, 40, has been deputy chairperson of the banking watchdog, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), since 2019.

Turkey began the year with a series of price hikes in areas ranging from gas and electricity to road tolls and bus fares. The monthly minimum wage was also hiked 50% for 2022.

The median estimate of 17 economists in the Reuters poll for annual inflation in January stood at 46.68%, the highest since April 2002, with forecasts ranging between 40% and 52.19%. The median for the monthly inflation figure was 9.8% in the range of 6.9% and 13.72%.

A median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 16 analysts sees the reading surging to 48%.

Producer prices have also soared in recent months, with annual inflation standing at 79.89% last month, which economists say also puts upward pressure on consumer prices.

The central bank sees inflation approaching 50% in January and peaking around 55% in May before dropping sharply in the third quarter and ending the year at 23.2%, according to its first quarterly inflation report unveiled last week.

The bank ramped up its year-end annual inflation forecast to 23.2% from a previous 11.8%, and its chief dismissed the notion that a series of rate cuts have sent inflation soaring and the lira declining, stressing the monetary authority sets policy based on data.

The bank also forecast 8.2% inflation for the end of 2023 and a return to its official target of 5% a year later.

As Erdoğan praised the currency stability this month and promised to address the "inflation bubble," CBRT Governor Şahap Kavcıoğlu said the central bank has made lira a top priority.

Kavcıoğlu on Thursday said that the central bank will support the new economic plan and that price stability will be achieved by increasing the share of the lira in the financial system. He said the bank will review its policy tools and add new instruments in order to prioritize the local currency.

Erdoğan on Saturday vowed Turkey would achieve great success in the economy as it has attained in other areas.

He reiterated the government’s aim to place Turkey among one of the world’s top 10 largest economies.

"We have two areas that are dear to us. The first is to ensure the security of our country and our people. Because without security, everything else is meaningless. The second is the economy. Keeping the economy, people’s livelihood and employment alive, and constantly improving them is our main goal," Erdoğan said.

He said that his government’s economic program based on investment, employment, production, exports and growth will help achieve this goal.

"Every investment made, every production and service facility opened will continue to bring income to our country and our people for generations," the president noted.

"Just as we have improved our security, infrastructure, regional and global political power at a level that we can be proud of, I hope we will soon achieve similar successes together with the economy."/DS

Asylum seekers from Egypt have been living in Metro Vancouver for years, but say one CBSA agent has denied all their refugee requests because of political ties. Crystal Laderas reports.

Asylum seekers from Egypt who’ve been living in Metro Vancouver for years, say one Canadian Border Services Agency agent has denied all their refugee requests because of Islamophobic views.

Attia Elserafy is part of one of five families who say a CBSA officer rejected their claims because of ties to one political party. These families began to settle in the Vancouver area about five years ago.

“We came to Canada … looking for protection here, because I am a political activist in Egypt and a leader of a trade union,” he tells CityNews. However, he adds, “The officer is targeting me and my family.”

Elserfafy and other families are members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which won a democratic election after mass protests in 2011.

In 2013, Egypt’s army chief seized power in a military coup against the elected Freedom and Justice Party’s government.

Since then, the government has been arresting thousands of party’s members and Muslim Brotherhood supporters after labelling them as “terrorists” in a campaign that Amnesty International called in 2015 a “ruthless bid to crush dissent.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is not listed on Canada’s list of terrorist entities.

With no citizenship status, Elserafy can’t get accredited to work as an engineer, HIS two children are still living in Turkey, and one daughter here can’t attend university.

“I thought many times to end my life. I now follow-up with A psychiatric doctor, I’m taking medication – can’t control myself, because my family is destroyed and I couldn’t do anything for them,” Elserfafy says. “We are good people, he [is] working with us like we’re animals.”

Volunteers note high profile politicians with the Freedom and Justice Party resettled in Canada, and the Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy is calling for more oversight over the CBSA.

“There are many individuals and families in the exact same situation who had come from different ports of entry in Canada, all across Canada who had the same grounds and they were made admissible to Canada. We feel like evidence gathered from this office, [is] based on Islamophobic viewpoints,” Volunteer Akram Raouf added.

Elserafy is also calling on the Public Safety to “[save] me and my family and other families and keeping Canadadian values.”

Protestors also held a rally at the federal Immigration Minister’s constituency office in Toronto, pushing him to intervene. 

Ahıska Turks are hopeful that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will mediate between Ukraine and Russia to bring an end to ongoing tensions in the region.

"Our hope is that Erdoğan will bring the presidents of the two states (Russia and Ukraine) together and there will be no war. It will end with friendship," Sadri Ahmedov, head of the Association of Ahıska Turks of the Donetsk region, told Anadolu Agency (AA) in an interview.

On Nov. 14, 1944, around 100,000 Ahıska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks, were deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin from their ancestral lands in Georgia's Meskheti region to distant parts of the USSR, according to the World Ahıska Turks Association. Some of the expelled Ahıska Turks were settled in Ukraine in 1989.

Despite harsh conditions, they preserved their identity over the decades and passed on their cultural heritage to future generations.

Due to the conflict that broke out between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine in 2014, most Ahıska Turks living in the region were allowed to move to Turkey and settle in the eastern Erzincan province on Erdoğan's initiative.

Some Ahıska Turks had to leave the region due to the conflict in 2014, Ahmedov noted, adding that though they lost their property, they were not killed in the instability.

Ahmedov said that he, along with several other Ahıska Turk families who continued to live in the city of Slovyansk in the northern part of the Donetsk region, had a difficult time in mid-2014 when pro-Russian separatists seized control of the area.

Slovyansk, an important railway junction of the region and once a stronghold for the separatists, was recaptured in July 2014 by Ukrainian government forces following weeks of siege.

"There were days when we couldn't find food, because the shops were not working, you couldn't see anyone at the bus stops. Everywhere was quiet. There were no people around. Thanks to Allah that those days are behind us. Now, we're living normally," he said.

Ahmedov, a lawyer by profession, said there were roughly 200 Ahıska Turks living in the region today.

Returning home

"There's a saying that sometimes, accidents bring good. The war in 2014 paved the way for us to return to our homeland," stressed the regional Ahıska leader.

He underlined that 677 Ahıska Turk families have moved to Erzincan so far and that 46 other families were in the process of relocating.

Ahmedov said Ahıska families living in Donbass had integrated into the rest of society as they study, work and live "shoulder to shoulder" with each other.

They also enjoy very good relations with other groups in Ukraine, with whom they are "like brothers," Ahmedov added, emphasizing that the Ukrainian people in the region were dismayed to see their Ahıska neighbors leave in 2014.

Today, Ahıska Turks are scattered across nine countries and number up to half a million people in total.

'Nobody wants war'

Iskender Osmanov, another Ahıska Turk resident of the region, recalled that when clashes broke out between the two sides in 2014, bombs fell on the region and they fled to shelters.

"Nobody needs this war, I don't want a war anywhere," said Osmanov, who is engaged mainly in farming.

He added that they have been living in the same place for the past 32 years and that the locals have "accepted and helped" them when they moved from Uzbekistan in 1989.

Osmanov also voiced hope that Erdoğan will act as a mediator between Kyiv and Moscow to help calm the tensions between them and the conflict in the area.

Since 2014, Russia has been supporting separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, a policy it has maintained for the past eight years.

As tensions rise with Kyiv and the West, Moscow has in recent months amassed well over 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.

In response to Russia's actions, NATO enhanced its presence in the eastern bloc, with four multinational battalion-size battlegroups deployed to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland on a rotational basis./DS

The Turkish military eliminated five terrorists from the PKK’s Syrian offshoot YPG who opened fire and were attempting to infiltrate the area controlled by the military in northern Syria, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the ministry said the terrorists opened harassment fire on Turkish troops and tried to enter the Operation Peace Spring zone.

Turkey carried out Operation Peace Spring in 2019 against the YPG/PKK in northern Syria's Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain regions to prevent a terror corridor from being created along its southern border, as well as to bring peace and stability to the region.

After the completion of the operation, Turkish officials focused on ensuring the security of the region and creating the necessary conditions for the return of civilians displaced by terrorism.

Thanks to Turkey's major contributions to health, education and other services, life has returned to normal and the population of the region now numbers 250,000. The atmosphere of trust and stability provided in the Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain districts in the Operation Peace Spring region has distanced both districts from the chaos of the war./agencies

Two Iraqi children were killed on Saturday in an explosion in the capital Baghdad, according to a local police officer.

A third child was injured in the blast that occurred when children were playing near a garbage lot in Al-Askari neighborhood in southern Baghdad, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Saturday’s explosion is the second in just 24 hours after three people were killed, including two children, in a blast in a forest in the central Babel province.

Iraqi authorities often blame the Daesh/ISIS terrorist group for these blasts, which also occur as a result of unexploded ordnance./aa

Kuwait Airways suspended flights to Iraq on Saturday, one day after a rocket attack targeted Baghdad International Airport.

The Gulf state’s flag carrier cited “the current situation in Iraq” for its decision to suspend flights to its neighbor.

On Friday, six Katyusha rockets landed in the Baghdad International Airport compound, causing damage to two civilian aircraft.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi described the airport attack as an "attempt to defame the country," vowing a "decisive" response against the "dangerous" attack.

The airport compound is adjacent to a US air base, known as Camp Victory. The base came under several rocket attacks in recent months, which Washington blames on Iran-backed militias./aa