Word: anatolia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...latest political problems show how Turkey's old secular establishment, a wealthy class rooted in western coastal cities, is not ready to surrender its prerogatives yet. It is backing the court challenge to the AKP, whose electoral base, incidentally, is central Anatolia. (Turkey's President, Abdullah Gul, is from Kayseri.) "The reason the economy was booming in recent years," says Raymond James analyst Avci, "was that there was finally political stability with a single-party government. That is now in jeopardy, which is worrying." And yet businessmen like Serdar Bilgili remain upbeat. The Istanbul entrepreneur just invested...
...Eksioglu himself is an example of how the AKP is drawing from an ever wider pool of supporters. Traditionally, AKP supporters hailed from central Anatolia or the sprawling, working-class suburbs of big cities like Istanbul. But Eksioglu is conspicuously uptown. His family's property-development firm has flourished under AKP rule (it has put up four buildings since 2002, vs. none in the previous political term), thanks to a stable economy and lower interest rates that have made buying homes easier for ordinary residents of Istanbul. He now owns an apartment on Baghdad Avenue, the smartest address...
...understand why Turks are voting for the AKP in such numbers, visit Pursaklar, a hillside town just outside Ankara in the brown hills of central Anatolia. Ten years ago, the place was an afterthought, its small population made up mostly of poor migrants from rural parts of central and eastern Turkey. Today it is a booming residential center of 120,000, with 10,000 more arriving each year, according to its AKP mayor. The town boasts two new parks, a town square redesigned around an imposing new mosque, and a factory-sized cultural center (with separate facilities...
...institutional check on his party's agenda, which is likely to increase friction with the military. The choice also represents a broader shift in political power away from the secularist elite in Turkey's coastal cities and towards the conservative Islamic heartland. Gul himself hails from Central Anatolia, the Turkish equivalent of America's Bible Belt. His party's ascendance over the past five years poses a clear challenge not only to the military, but to Turkey's old secular establishment. It's a challenge based on a democratic mandate from the electorate. But in a country where the military...
...extermination of the Armenians was pre-arranged,” Russell said yesterday morning. “It took place not only in the war zone; it took place all across Anatolia, and the people who were systematically murdered were virtually in all cases not connected...