Headlines

• Power outage still being investigated: Energy Minister Yildiz

• Turkey: Training for Syrian fighters expected in May

• Prosecutor dies after Turkey hostage siege; 2 gunmen killed

Details

Power outage still being investigated: Energy Minister Yıldız

Turkey's energy minister has ruled out electricity scarcity as a factor behind the country's massive power outage on Tuesday, as the investigation into its cause continues.

"We have no clear data yet. It is still being investigated," said Taner Yıldız, answering questions at the Anadolu Agency's Energy Desk on Friday morning.

He ruled out scarcity as a factor and confirmed that Turkey, on the contrary, has an abundance of power.
In the morning of Tuesday, March 31, an unprecedented power outage hit the country, including in the biggest province Istanbul and capital Ankara, leaving almost the entire nation without power, disrupting transportation and daily life.

A group of some 60 experts and engineers are currently carrying out an investigation into the extraordinary incident, Yıldız said.
The minister also ridiculed the conspiracy theories suggesting the government had planned the blackout to manipulate the public on the need for a nuclear power facility.

He said the AK Party rule has been transparent on the nuclear program and has no need to play any tricks.

On Wednesday, the Turkish Parliament ratified an international agreement with Japan on the construction of Turkey's first nuclear plant in the Black Sea region province of Sinop. [Source: Daily Sabah]

With its overall energy sources linked 72% to external states, it is impossible for a state to be independent.

((وَلَن يَجْعَلَ اللّهُ لِلْكَافِرِينَ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ سَبِيلاً))

"And never will Allah give the disbelievers over the believers a way." [TMQ: 4:141]

Turkey: Training for Syrian fighters expected in May

The train-and-equip program for vetted Syrian fighters can begin in May in Turkey, Turkish defense minister said Tuesday.
Addressing the media before attending the ruling Justice and Development or AK Party's weekly meeting in Anakra, Ismet Yilmaz said that Turkish delegations were continuing their negotiations with the U.S. over selection of Syrian fighters for the program.
When asked about how Syrian fighters were being selected, Yilmaz said it was being done "jointly" with partner countries.

"We think that the train-and-equip program for 'vetted members' of Syrian opposition forces can start in May," he said.

He also reiterated that the exact place for training Syrian fighters in Turkey had been decided. On March 2, the defense minister had announced that the program for Syrian fighters would be held in Turkey's central Anatolia province of Kirikkale.

The minister also said that the U.K. might also participate in the program as one of the countries providing trainers.
On Feb. 19, Turkey and the U.S. inked a deal to train-and-equip Syrian fighters in an effort to achieve an actual political transformation in the war-torn country on the basis of the Geneva Communique. The fighters are expected to fight both Daesh and the Bashar al-Assad-led Syrian regime. [Source: Anadolu Agency]

It is very sad to see how a Muslim country's rulers can be so eager to serve colonialists.

Prosecutor dies after Turkey hostage siege; 2 gunmen killed

A prosecutor involved in a controversial case died Tuesday after he was shot during a hostage siege in an Istanbul courthouse.
Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz died in the hospital from injuries he suffered during the attack, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, speaking to reporters on Turkish television.

The two gunmen who took the prosecutor hostage were killed in a shootout with police after a standoff that lasted for hours.
Kiraz was assigned to the controversial case of Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old boy who was injured during the anti-government Gezi Park protests in June 2013.

The teen died the following March after having spent nine months in a coma. The case, with its overtones of possible police overreaction, has been politically contentious, just as the protests themselves were.
In an online post widely cited in Turkish media, the left-wing Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front claimed responsibility for the attack. The post said the gunmen were seeking to avenge Elvan's death.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the gunmen as terrorists and said they were disguised as lawyers when they entered the courthouse.
"This is not to be taken lightly," he said.

The gunmen took the prosecutor hostage around 12:30 p.m. in his office on the sixth floor of the Caglayan district courthouse, the semiofficial Anadolu Agency reported.

Police evacuated that floor of the building, the agency reported, and snipers were deployed.

An explosion, followed by sounds of more gunshots, could be heard coming from the courthouse Tuesday evening, hours after the siege began.
Istanbul Police Chief Selami Altinok said Kiraz had been shot before Turkish security teams entered the room where the hostage crisis was unfolding.

"There is nothing else to do but to pray at this moment," Erdogan said.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, known as the DHKP-C, is viscerally hostile to the Turkish state, the United States and NATO, and has had links with the far left in Europe.

The Marxist-Leninist group claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.
Among other attacks attributed to the DHKP-C was the assassination of a former justice minister, Mehmet Topac, in 1994, as well as the murders of a number of senior police and military officials and, 1996, a prominent businessman, Ozdemir Sabanci. . [Source: CNN]

While discussions about presidential system continue in the country, a prosecutor is killed inside probably the most protected building of Turkey. Without Khilafah "Caliphate" nowhere is safe enough.