Day: December 7, 2021

Turkish security forces “neutralized” a so-called area commander of the PKK terror group, the country’s interior minister said on Tuesday.

Ferhat Tunc, code-named Rubar, was neutralized in a joint operation conducted by intelligence, aviation, and special forces, Suleyman Soylu announced on Twitter.

One pistol, two hand grenades, one thermal goggle, and some organizational documents were recovered from the suspect during the operation conducted in Hacilar village of southeastern Sanliurfa province’s Bozova district, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Turkish authorities use the word “neutralized” in statements to imply that the terrorists in question either surrendered or were killed or captured.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and EU – has been responsible for the deaths of at least 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdogan stressed the need for reforms to realize the full potential of women.

In a video message for the 12th Bosphorus Summit in Istanbul, she said the economic and political empowerment of women will improve justice in the world.

The two-day summit, organized by the International Cooperation Platform (ICP), started on Monday.

The summit will cover a wide range of issues, including international economic relations, Islamic finance investing, innovation, and aviation sustainability.

The first lady underlined that the prospect of a better world is a multidimensional issue, which requires efforts in many areas ranging from economy to politics, and from culture to environment.

She said that there have been rapid changes in the world due to the pandemic.

“This rapid change shows itself in all areas of life, we should not wait to see what the future will bring, but shape the future so that everyone can live fairly,” she added.

Right time to fight for women’s rights

In her speech, Manal Abdel-Samad, Lebanon’s former information minister, said the pandemic has left women worse off with gender parity inadvertently endangered.

Referring to an Oxfam report, she said women lost more than 64 million jobs worldwide, which amount to $800 billion.

“The entire global economy will be suffering. Second, if governments deprive their communities of adequate funds to ensure vital public services, women will be the first losers.”

She also said it is the right time to fight for women’s rights and the world can use taxation as a major means to realize this objective.

“Tax policies aimed chiefly at encouraging investments that promote economic growth and sustainable development without considering the extent of which these policies are widening the gender equality gap,” she said.

In fact, she added, gender inequality in taxation usually mirrors the fundamental social patterns and beliefs in each society.

“What this means is that no country can work on advancing women in business without filling the gender gap in society,” she concluded.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey set export records in 2021 and its international port in southern Mersin stands out as one of the most important transfer locations for exported products.

Mersin International Port (MIP) is the 92nd largest container terminal in the world and one of the largest ports in Turkey.

With a nearly 2.6 million 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container handling capacity, MIP is connected via railways and highways with Turkey’s industrialized cities such as Ankara, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Kahramanmaras and Konya, and with bordering countries including Syria and Iraq as well as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Russia.

A partnership between Turkey’s Akfen Holding, Singapore’s PSA International and Australia’s IFM Investors, MIP is one of the main container ports in the Mediterranean region with its transit and hinterland connections with the Middle East and the Black Sea.

Compared to a more than 766,000 TEU export volume in 2020, the port’s export volume has almost reached 764,000 TEU during the first 11 months of 2021.

The amount of handling in the port, which includes exports, imports and transit cargos, surpassed 2 million TEU even in 2020, a year marked by the global coronavirus pandemic. It is now expected to reach 2.1 million TEU in 2021.

It is a multi-purpose port that provided terminal services for 3,584 containers and conventional vessels in 2020.

“Looking back over the last 14 years since its privatization, MIP has achieved an average annual growth rate of about 7.5%. This excellent annual growth rate has made MIP the largest container terminal in the country for the last three consecutive years,” General Manager Johan Van Daele told Anadolu Agency.

Due to its location at the center of the main east-west and north-south routes, MIP serves its hinterland as the crucial logistics hub connecting Turkey with the Far East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

The port not only connects Turkey with the world for exports but also supports the industry with strong necessary imports of basic raw materials, said Van Daele.

“MIP is connected to the hinterland by railways and highways and is adjacent to the Mersin Free Zone and the strong industrial zones nearby. Therefore, MIP meets the demand for port services for container and conventional cargos as well as various Ro-Ro activities,” he said.

Moreover, he said, being in Cukurova, MIP is a strategic export loading port for citrus and other fresh fruits that mainly connects to the Black Sea region and the Middle East countries.

“On the other hand, MIP is aware of its role in regional transit to the CIS countries, Iraq, Northern Cyprus and many other neighboring countries with direct transit and indirectly with a significant amount of processed raw materials for export to such locations,” said Van Daele.

The maritime industry is a fast-growing field, and work done with two ships in the past is now done in one with larger ships. Thus, ports must build docks, sites and equipment to accommodate new ship sizes.

Located next to the main navigational routes from East to West, MIP also needs the excess capacity to become a player in the global container market and to host mega vessels, according to Van Daele.

The port’s current handling capacity is 2.6 million TEU and after completion of the East Med Hub Phase 2 (EMH2) project, the capacity will increase to 3.6 million TEU.

Up to 368 meters vessels with a capacity for 18,000 standard containers can be currently served at MIP’s EMHI Terminal, however, the EMH2 expansion, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, will provide a 380-meter (1,247-foot) extension of the existing dock toward the sea and additional site reclamation.

But Van Daele said EMH2 will enable the port to simultaneously serve two mega ships with a length of 400 meters (1,312 feet) and a maximum draft of 16 meters (52 feet) – the largest in the world.

A total of $250 million has been spent for capacity expansion, equipment and infrastructure projects and more than $450 million is planned for further investments.

“With global trade increasing rapidly, this growth shows that MIP needs to focus on new investments to meet hinterland growth and provide the necessary level of service. This growth in trade is an indication that not only the port but also the Mersin region is growing,” Van Daele added.

Port expansion to provide more employment

The capacity expansion will also enable MIP’s employment capacity. It currently employs 3,000 directly and 25,000 people indirectly and aims to create an additional 500 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs as part of the EMH2 project.

Van Daele said the project will increase the number of direct liner services and provide competitive freight prices with shorter transit times.

“When completed, the project will strengthen the strategic position of the port of Mersin in the Eastern Mediterranean and will add value to the economic development of the region. As a result, MIP will have a strong competitive position in the container transport trade against other terminals in the Mediterranean area,” he added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkish airports welcomed 11.3 million passengers in November 2021, according to the country’s air travel authority on Tuesday.

November’s figures nearly doubled from last year when the coronavirus hit the world, the State Airports Authority General Directorate (DHMI) reported.

The figures were close to the pre-pandemic level of 14.5 million in November 2019, the authority added.

Some 6.3 million passengers took domestic flights, while 5 million took international flights last month.

The airports served 127,512 aircraft, including overflights this November, of which 60,978 were on domestic routes and 39,017 on international routes.

The DHMI report also said cargo traffic reached 285,370 tons last month.

The Istanbul Airport welcomed 3.8 million passengers on both international and domestic routes, serving over 27,391 airplanes in November.

In January-November, the number of air passengers through Turkish airports hit 118.4 million.

The plane traffic was 1.3 million in the first eleven months of this year.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani participated in the signing ceremony of 12 of the agreements in various areas, including trade, investment, development, culture, youth, sports, diplomacy, health, religious affairs, and the media.

A memorandum of understanding on disaster and emergency management and an agreement to establish institutional cooperation between Turkey’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum and Qatar’s Doha Forum were also signed between the two countries.

Turkey’s Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) and the Qatar Development Bank also inked a memorandum of understanding.

A deal between the Turkish Standards Institute (TurkStat) and the Qatar General Organization for Standardization was also signed.

Another memorandum of understanding was signed between the Investment Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey and the Qatari Businessmen’s Association.

Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s leading news source, and the Qatari News Agency are also expected to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of the media.

Following the signing ceremony, Erdogan and Al Thani are expected to attend the 7th meeting of the Turkey-Qatar Supreme Strategic Committee.

Earlier, Erdogan was welcomed with an official ceremony by Al Thani, and the duo held a one-on-one meeting at the Amiri Diwan, the emir’s office.

Erdogan arrived in the Qatari capital Doha on Monday for a two-day working visit at the invitation of Al Thani.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The European Union risks becoming irrelevant in global politics if it fails to strengthen its defense capabilities and spending on innovation, the bloc’s top diplomat said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the European Defense Agency Conference in Brussels, the bloc’s de facto capital, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that without a stronger defense policy, the bloc could soon become irrelevant in “power politics”.

He stressed that without significant investments to integrate new cutting-edge technologies in European defense systems, the bloc will lose interoperability with its partners and advantages vis-à-vis its competitors.

“Either we invest a lot in defense innovation, or we will become defense irrelevant,” he stressed, urging EU member states to “do much more together” and “right now.”

“Innovation is shaping the global balance of power,” Borrell said, pointing to how the EU and its member states are lagging behind other global actors in defense innovation spending.

Last year, the US spent €14 billion ($15.8 million) on defense innovation, 14 times more than what EU member states invested, he explained.

Borrell also said civilian innovation had a huge impact on defense, especially in the cyber domain, noting that in 2020 tech giant Alphabet/Google had spent 10 times more in research and innovation than all EU defense ministries combined.

According to Borrell, his recently revealed defense strategy, the Strategic Compass, offers a remedy to these problems.

The action guide, presented to EU foreign and defense ministers last month, sets forth concrete proposals and timelines for strengthening EU defense, such as setting up a swiftly deployable EU force of 5,000 troops, investing in industrial capabilities, and securing the EU against cyberattacks.

The final document is expected to be adopted in March.

Based on the lessons from the Yugoslav Wars, the idea of reforming and strengthening the bloc’s defense and security policy has been on the table since the mid-1990s.

However, EU member states have been unable to advance on the policy due to the high sensitivity of the topic and diverging interests.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Financing from the international community is key for making the transition to a green economy, said a top Turkish diplomat on Tuesday, adding that as an EU candidate, Turkey should be able to enjoy some of the funding provided to other candidate countries.

Speaking at the 12th Bosphorus Summit in Istanbul, Deputy Foreign Minister Faruk Kaymakci said Turkey is closely following developments on the EU’s Green Deal, announced earlier this year.

The two-day summit, organized by the International Cooperation Platform (ICP), started on Monday.

“When we talk about the Green Deal, we’re not (just) talking about the environment, it’s as related to trade as it is related to industry,” said Kaymakci. “We need to have sustainable green transport, which is also about energy policies.”

Some countries can finance Green Deal projects themselves, but the green transition is not only in Europe, but everywhere, and of course Turkey is also trying to evolve, he stressed.

Telling how the Turkish government adopted a Green Deal action plan, Kaymakci said Turkey is focusing on such important elements as carbon border adjustment mechanisms.

On Turkey’s long-sought update to its 1995 Customs Union with the EU, he said this is also related to the Green Deal, as free trade pacts with third countries would help the bloc to adopt climate action and sustainability policies.

“I think there is urgency that we focus more on modernization of the Customs Union,” he added.

– Bosphorus Summit

The summit, an annual international economic event, is being held under the theme “Challenges for a Better World,” with top officials, experts, and academics in attendance.

The summit is covering a wide range of issues, including international economic relations, Islamic investing, innovation, and aviation sustainability.

Other subjects to be discussed include cyber security, agriculture, green energy, climate change, and displaced people.

Source: Anadolu Agency