Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, commonly referred by his initials RTE, is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He also co-founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001.
The Qara Qoyunlu or Kara Koyunlu, also known as the Black Sheep Turkomans, were a culturally Persianate, Muslim Turkoman monarchy that ruled over the territory comprising present-day Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, northwestern Iran, eastern Turkey, and northeastern Iraq from about 1374 to 1468.
Mount Judi is Noah's apobaterion or "Place of Descent", the location where the Ark came to rest after the Great Flood, according to very early Christian and Islamic tradition. The Quranic tradition is similar to the Judeo-Christian legend. The identification of Mount Judi as the landing site of the ark persisted in Syriac and Armenian tradition throughout Late Antiquity, but was abandoned for the tradition equating the biblical location with the highest mountain in Turkey, that is Mount Ararat.
Peter Balakian is an Armenian-American poet, prose writer, and scholar. He is the author of many books including the 2016 Pulitzer prize winning book of poems Ozone Journal, the memoir Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Albrand award in 1998 and The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, winner of the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and a New York Times best seller. Both prose books were New York Times Notable Books. Since 1980 he has taught at Colgate University where he is the Donald M and Constance H Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English and Director of Creative Writing.
Tim Lilburn is a Canadian poet and essayist. Lilburn was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Regina, a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Gonzaga University, and his PhD from McMaster University.
Normal diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye) and the United States of America in 1927. Relations after World War II evolved from the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943 and Turkey's entrance into World War II on the side of the Allies in February 1945. Later that year, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations. Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine declared American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in significant U.S. military and economic support. This support manifested in the establishment of a clandestine stay-behind army, denoted the "Counter-Guerrilla", under Operation Gladio. After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1952.
Sean Michael Wilson is a Scottish comic book writer from Edinburgh. He has written more than 40 books with a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers and has been nominated for both the Eisner and Harvey book awards, and won a medal in the Japanese government's 'International Manga Award', 2016.
Sayed Gouda is an Egyptian poet, novelist and translator. He majored in the Chinese language. Dr Sayed Gouda was born in Cairo and moved to Hong Kong where he currently resides. He did his undergraduate studies in Egypt and China, majoring in Chinese, and received his PhD in comparative literary studies from the City University of Hong Kong in 2014. His research interests include comparative literature, comparative cultural studies, and translation studies. Gouda is a published poet, novelist, and translator. His works and translations have appeared in Arabic, English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Macedonian, Uzbek, Romanian, and Mongolian. He is the editor of a literary website called Nadwah that features five languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, and German (www.arabicnadwah.com/index-english.htm). From 2004 to 2010, he organised a monthly literary salon in Hong Kong. He has also participated in many international poetry festivals and academic conferences around the world. Gouda won first prize in poetry from the Faculty of Languages (al-Alsun), Ain Shams University. In addition, in 2012, he was awarded the Enchanting Poet Award by The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, and in 2014, an honorary prize for his poem ‘Night Train’ from Shijie huawen shibao 世界華文詩報.
The 11th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) was held in Istanbul, Turkey on 12–16 December 2012. This swimming-only championships took place in the Sinan Erdem Dome; all events were swum in a 25-meter (short-course) pool.
Abdulhamid or Abdul Hamid II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. The period when he reigned in the Ottoman Empire is known as the Hamidian Era. He oversaw a period of decline, with rebellions, and presided over an unsuccessful war with the Russian Empire (1877–78) followed by a successful war against the Kingdom of Greece in 1897, though Ottoman gains were tempered by subsequent Western European intervention.
Jeton Kelmendi is an academic, Albanian journalist, poet, translator, university professor and political analyst.
Yazidis or Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok.
Edward J. Erickson is a retired regular U.S. Army officer at the Marine Corps University who has written widely on the Ottoman Army during World War I. He is an associate of International Research Associates, Seattle, Washington and as of July 2016 was also listed as an advisory board member of the Ankara-based, Turkish government aligned think-tank, Avrasya Incelemeleri Merkezi (AVIM), which goes by the English name Center for Eurasian Studies.
Hossein Fatemi is an Iranian photojournalist. He received the 2nd place World Press Photo Award in 2017, and the Picture of the Year International (POYi) in 2016 and 2014 in two categories. He is a member of Panos Pictures since 2010.
Stanley H. Barkan is an American poet, translator, editor, publisher.
Jidi Majia is a Chinese poet and a lieutenant governor of Qinghai from 2006 to 2010. He was born in 1961 and belongs to an ethnic minority of China, the Yi. He has published numerous poetic anthologies since the 1980s and has won national literature awards, is also considered one of the greatest poets of minorities in China. He is the President of the China Minority Literary Association and Permanent Vice-President of the China Poets' Association.
Terrorism in Turkey is a significant issue for Turkish authorities as 1.6 million people were investigated after being accused of terrorism between 2016 and 2020. Prominent figures of the Turkish opposition were accused of an alleged membership of a terrorist group. The definition of terrorism in Turkey is rather vague as it also includes a social media post or taking part in popular protests. Terrorist attacks in Turkey have occurred in the southeastern and eastern provinces, and major cities like Ankara and Istanbul. The group Dev-Genç was founded in 1969 and involved in a string of kidnappings, bombings and bank robberies until martial law was declared in 1971. While these incidents were halted by 1973, attacks by the Armenian groups Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) continued. Most of these attacks took place internationally, though there were some attacks within Turkey as well. For example, the May 1977 bombing of the Istanbul airport and the Ankara Esenboğa Airport attack. In Turkey protesting for Kurdish rights or supporting or demanding education in the Kurdish language is often also seen as supporting terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Zehra Güneş is a Turkish professional volleyball player. She plays in the middle blocker position. Currently, she plays for Vakıfbank Istanbul and is a member of the Turkey women's national volleyball team.
