Category: General

The Turkish national football team manager has said they are “sorry” for their failure in the UEFA EURO 2020 but he is not currently considering resignation from his job.

“We are sorry. We were aiming to go through (for the next round) from the group. We came here as we thought that we were able to do it,” Senol Gunes said late Sunday in a post-match conference at the Baku Olympic Stadium.

Turkey on Sunday were beaten by Switzerland 3-1 in their last group match in Baku, which meant the end of their EURO journey.

Gunes-led Turkey displayed a disappointing performance in the EURO 2020 finals, losing all their matches in Group A.

Turkey, who had great hopes ahead of the games, respectively lost to Italy 3-0, Wales 2-0, and Switzerland 3-1 to face early elimination from the tournament.

“Now I do not think about resigning or not. We (the team) did our job,” Gunes said.

Gunes has laid the burden on everyone as he said the media, football executives, and players are also responsible for Turkey’s failure.

Responding to a question, the 69-year-old said that in the wins or failures the manager should take the responsibility.

Referring to the group stage elimination, he said: “What should be done now? Is it resignation or continue to work? You (media) would consider much better.”

He added that the Turkish national team had a “difficult challenge” in this tournament.

“At least we should have succeeded it to qualify for the last 16. Sometimes failures can add bigger experiences. This group (national squad) will leave its mark on the Turkish football for 10 more years.”

Separately, Turkish midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu said they “all feel very sorry” but the team should learn from their mistakes.

“We earned some experience. Apparently, we have to take lessons from a lot of things. But we still have the 2022 World Cup ahead of us. We are on a good track there. We have to forget about this tournament quickly,” the 27-year-old player said.

Turkey are currently on top of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying Group G with seven points after three matches.

Netherlands, Montenegro, and Norway are chasing them with six points each, while Latvia have one point.

Gibraltar bottomed the group, losing all their three matches so far.

The group winner will bag the Qatar 2022 ticket. The second-place team will advance to the European playoffs.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The US vowed on Monday to hold recently-elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi accountable for potential human rights violations “on his watch” as indirect negotiations continue on Tehran’s nuclear program.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden has no plans to sit down with the president-elect amid continuing progress to return Iran and the US to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal world power struck with the Islamic Republic.

“We strongly urge the Iranian government regardless of who’s in power to release political prisoners, improve respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Iranians,” Psaki said.

“As we’re in the middle of these discussions after the sixth round, the precise nature and sequence of these sanctions-related steps in the United States would take would need to take to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is a subject of the talks and of the discussions,” she said. “We certainly understand as we’ve seen in past rounds of these negotiations that there will be a range of rhetoric to address political needs at home.”

Iran earlier Monday said a deal to revive the pact is within reach with a text being agreed upon.

“It is not unlikely that the next round of talks in Vienna will be the last,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Habibzadeh said. “We have reached a clear text on all issues. All that remains is for all parties to make a political decision.”

The sixth round of talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna concluded on Sunday, as delegates returned to their respective capitals for consultations and final decisions.

Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, and went on to re-impose sanctions on Tehran lifted under the agreement in a failed push to bring Iran back to the negotiating table for a more extensive agreement.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Israeli police attacked Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday.

Police prevented residents from entering a square by using batons, according to eyewitnesses.

They also used force to disperse journalists and Palestinians who were in the area to support families who have been under threat of forcible eviction from their homes.

Israeli security forces also raided a house in the neighborhood and attacked its residents.

On Saturday, Israeli settlers fired tear gas at residents and those standing in solidarity with them in the neighborhood.

Tensions have escalated across the Palestinian territories since April over an Israeli court verdict to evict Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in favor of Jewish settlers. The situation flared up after Israeli forces raided Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, and assaulted worshippers inside.

The tensions spread to the Gaza Strip, with Israel launching airstrikes that killed at least 290 Palestinians, including women and children, and left behind a trail of destruction. Health centers and media offices as well as schools were among the structures targeted.

On May 21, an Egyptian-brokered truce ended Israel’s 11-day bombardment of Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The party of Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won the early parliamentary polls with 53.92% of the votes, according to preliminary results on Monday.

Unofficial results announced by the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia showed that Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party came first in the election held on Sunday.

Former President Robert Kocharian’s party Armenian Alliance came second with 21.1% of the votes.

According to the results, Pashinyan’s party lacks 0.08% to reach 54% threshold to form the government by itself.

The I Have Honor Alliance, supported by the former President and Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, gained 5.23% of the votes and entered the parliament.

The voter turnout in the election was 49.4%, according to the commission.

In a written statement, the Armenian Alliance said that they would not recognize the election results for now, citing “hundreds of signals from polling stations testifying to organized and planned falsifications.”

While vote counting was underway, Pashinyan announced on Facebook that he would start negotiations with all “healthy” political powers.

Twenty-six political movements competed in the election for the office vacated after Pashinyan resigned from premiership on April 25.

A total of 22 political parties, along with four alliances, participated in the election to receive votes from over 2.58 million people.

Pashinyan’s resignation came after last year’s defeat in the Karabakh region, where a six-week-long war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended with a Russian-brokered truce on Nov. 10.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.​​​​​​​

Source: Anadolu Agency

Dozens of Israeli settlers on Monday forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, according to a Palestinian agency.

The Islamic Endowment Department in Jerusalem said in a brief statement that 56 settlers broke into the flashpoint compound under the protection of Israeli police.

More settlers are expected to enter the site later in the day.

Israeli settlers storm the complex every day except weekends; Friday for Muslims, and Saturday for Israelis.

Israeli police began allowing the settler incursions in 2003, despite repeated condemnations from the Islamic Endowment Department in Jerusalem.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s national women’s volleyball team were defeated by Brazil on Sunday in their fifteenth game in the 2021 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Nations League.

Turkey lost with sets of 25-18, 25-16, 25-27 and 25-15 in Rimini, Italy.

They will face the United States in the semifinals on Thursday.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The Turkish central government’s gross debt stock amounted to 2 trillion Turkish liras ($233.48 billion) as of the end of May, official figures showed on Monday.

The Treasury and Finance Ministry’s data showed that the figure was up by 22.5% on a yearly basis.

The gross debt stock includes the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies, and households.

Some 42.15% of the debt stock is denominated in Turkey’s local currency, while the rest is in foreign currency.

While 1.13 trillion Turkish liras ($132 billion) of the debt was domestic, some 868.13 billion liras ($101.3 billion) was external, it added.

Data also showed that as of May 31, the stock of Treasury receivables totaled 18.3 billion liras ($2.13 billion).


The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was around 8.57 at the end of May.


Source: Anadolu Agency

Australia’s suppression of information seen as essential to a free and open media is at the crux of accusations that the country has turned into one of the world’s most secretive democracies, the ABC News website reported Sunday.

Last week, a former Australian spy listed by a Canberra court’s registry as “Witness K” was convicted over his unconfirmed role as a whistleblower who exposed an espionage operation against the government of East Timor.

Witness K. spent the two-day hearing in a box constructed from black screens to hide his identity. The public and media were sent out of the courtroom when classified evidence was discussed, which was about half the time.

As lacking in transparency as Witness K’s prosecution was, it was a vast improvement on Australia’s treatment of another rogue intelligence officer known as Witness J.

Witness J has been depicted by the media as possibly the only person in Australian history to be tried, sentenced and imprisoned in secret. But no one seems to know for sure.

As with Witness K, it is illegal to reveal Witness J’s identity.

Australian police meanwhile have threatened to file charges against journalists who expose war crime allegations against Australian special forces in Afghanistan or plans by bureaucrats to allow an intelligence agency to spy on Australian citizens, the report added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Amid a nationwide fall in COVID-19 cases, Turkey is set to end pandemic curfews as of next Thursday, July 1, the country’s president announced on Monday.

That same day Turkey will also lift intercity travel restrictions and restrictions on urban public transport, said Recep Tayyip Erdogan after a three-hour-plus Cabinet meeting at the presidential complex in the capital Ankara.

Thanks to the drop in virus cases, Turkey will return to normal working order in public institutions and organizations as of July 1, he told reporters.

The country on Monday reported 5,294 new coronavirus cases, including 429 symptomatic patients, as well as 51 new fatalities and 5,093 recoveries over the past 24 hours.

On June 1, Turkey eased some measures to fight the virus as the number of virus cases in the country dropped following a 17-day lockdown.

Erdogan also stressed how “vital” it is for everyone to get jabs when their turn comes in the country’s vaccination drive.

Urging the public to pay no heed to “manipulations,” he said they should instead listen to scientists and doctors about the need for vaccinations.

“Our goal is to make everybody in our nation over age 18 eligible for vaccination within a few weeks,” he said.

Erdogan stressed that Turkey is the country that has administered vaccine doses to the largest share of its population over the last week.

– Turkish-US relations

On relations between Turkey and the US, Erdogan said the two countries are ushering in a new era on a “positive and constructive basis” following last week’s meeting with US President Joe Biden during a NATO summit in Brussels.

Turkey is determined to transform the “beautiful climate” achieved with Biden into maximum benefit for both countries, he added.

“Turkey’s only demand is respect for its sovereign rights in all political and economic areas and support for its fight against terrorist groups,” said Erdogan.

Following the meeting, Biden said he had a “very good meeting” with his Turkish counterpart.

The one-on-one meeting at NATO headquarters lasted for 45 minutes – the first time the leaders met since Biden took office this January.

Source: Anadolu Agency