Turkish Press Review

ISTANBUL

Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Turkish dailies on Thursday mainly dedicated their front pages to a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the president of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, in Ankara.

“A message to the world,” was STAR’s headline, alongside a photo of the two leaders shaking hands.

The daily wrote that the two leaders agreed on strengthening cooperation on energy and the fight against terrorism.

Relations between Ankara and Baghdad have dipped recently following the deployment of Turkish forces to northern Iraq.

“The most meaningful answer came from Iraq’s Kurdish leader Barzani to Baghdad administration, which turned Turkish army’s training to peshmerga [fighters] against Daesh – with pressure from Iran and Russia – into a crisis,” wrote the newspaper.

YENI SAFAK ran a front-page headline: “Mosul work.”

Apart from Erdogan, Barzani also met Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as well as the head of the National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan and Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, the daily reported.

According to the newspaper, Barzani had a 70-minute meeting with Erdogan and a 90-minute talk with Davutoglu.

SABAH quoted Barzani as saying: “We do not want to be a neighbor of Daesh,” while HURRIYET ran a headline: “Message with Barzani”.

On Tuesday, Barzani said the Turkish forces had come to Iraq to provide military training for soldiers who will participate in the operation to retake Mosul from Daesh.

In other news, Turkish newspapers also covered a “possible security threat” against the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, which canceled its consular services on Wednesday.

Featuring a picture of the fortress-like mission building, HURRIYET wrote that Turkish police had blocked all the streets to the consulate and U.S. soldiers patrolled in the courtyard.

“Extraordinary security measures have been taken at the U.S.’s Istanbul consulate over a terror attack possibility,” the newspaper wrote.

“Terror alarm at the consulate,” was VATAN’s headline, while HABER TURK wrote, “Alarm in Istanbul: consular services canceled, roads blocked”.

Some Turkish newspapers also covered Davutoglu’s meeting with foreign journalists in Istanbul in which he accused Russia of “ethnic cleansing” in Syria, according to the media.

HABER TURK quoted Davutoglu as saying: “Turkmen and Sunnis are [the subject of] ethnic cleansing.”

Citing Reuters, MILLIYET quoted Davutoglu: “They want to expel them, they want to ethnically cleanse this area so that the regime [of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus are protected.”

In economic news, DUNYA runs a front-page story reporting claims from MUSIAD – a Turkish industrialists’ group – that the country’s bureaucracy needs to be reformed.