What Did Turkey Give ISIS in Exchange for Hostages?

By Metin Turcan, Contributor for Al-Monitor - Turkey admitted to an exchange with the Islamic State for their hostages, but questions remain on what Turkey promised in return.

The circumstances of the release of the 49 Turkish hostages in Mosul by the Islamic State (IS) are widely questioned. So, how was their release accomplished?

 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York attracted much attention, especially when he said, “It is of course not possible to reach this result without having discussions. You do have contacts, but who does it, or how does it work? When we say the word "operation," people only think of airstrikes, bombs, aircraft, weaponry. But an operation isn't only that. Operations are political sometimes, or diplomatic, or civilian. And they involve discussions, contacts.”

 Erdogan's remarks reinforced suppositions of an exchange of hostages. According to a report by daily Hurriyet’s Deniz Zeyrek — citing reliable sources — in exchange for Turkish hostages, a group that included the wife and children of Abdulhamed al-Abidi al-Deilimi, a senior commander of the al-Qaeda-Iraq wing of Abu Musab Zarqawi who was killed in Aleppo last January, was released to the Islamic State (IS).

 The Syrian outfit that released this group of IS prisoners was the Liwa al-Tawhid Brigades, a leading proponent of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria that operated under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Liwa al-Tawhid first made a name for itself by claiming responsibility for the July 18, 2012, bomb attack in Damascus that killed relatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and senior Syrian officials.

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Journalists attacked by Erdogan's bodyguards in NY, media outraged

Turkish and international media representatives have expressed outrage following the announcement that Washington-based Turkish journalists Adem Yavuz Arslan and Ali Aslan were forced out of the lobby of a hotel in New York and attacked by the bodyguards of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday.

According to Arslan, the Washington representative of the Bugün daily two advisors of President Erdoğan said, “your existence is a crime,” in reference to journalists critical of the government.

Yavuz and Aslan, the Washington representative of the Zaman daily, were trying to report on the meeting between Erdoğan and US vice president Joe Biden in the Peninsula Hotel in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Turkish Leader Erdogan's Misstep in NYC

By  Stephen Schlesinger - The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has a problem. Through his battles at home in recent years to ward off criminal investigations of his administration, his insistence on dismissing wiretaps that show he and his aides involved in backroom threats against opponents, his decision to fire or imprison police and judicial officials whom he thinks are influenced by an overseas foe, his willingness to crush demonstrators who oppose his willful rehabbing of downtown Istanbul and his crackdown on journalists, he is getting a reputation as a mistrusting, authoritarian and sometimes paranoid leader -- despite his recent election to the top office in his country.

His appearance today before the august Council on Foreign Relations in New York City did nothing to allay those concerns. In a speech that was supposedly aimed at promoting Turkey's interests, Erdogan came off as a defensive and suspicious man, who sees conspiracies everywhere and feels misunderstood by everybody and thinks he is threatened from all sides. Here is a list of the central points he made in his address at the afternoon session at the Council:

Is TİKA funding radical Islamists?

By Emre Uslu - The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) likes to take special pride in the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA). This agency is implementing various projects in different places around the world. It restores historic monuments and lends support to civil society organizations (CSOs). TİKA projects even make Turkey the third-largest assistance-providing country after the US and UK. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently spoke of this fact as a source of pride during his visit to the US.

The TİKA projects were generally advertised as efforts to revive historic monuments that were legacies of the Ottoman Empire. For instance, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosque, Kosovo's largest mosque, in Pristina, was renovated thanks to a TİKA project. In Kosovo, there are dozens of mosques that have been repaired by TİKA. They are financing these projects with our taxes, but this expenditure is sufficiently justified.

Whom does TİKA really help? The answer to this question can be found in the recent crackdown on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front in Kosovo. A few days ago, the Kosovo police launched an operation against radical Islamic groups in the country. Thirty imams were taken into custody on charges of sending jihadists to Syria and Iraq. Many of them were arrested. Sixteen foundations and associations were shut down on charges of aiding and abetting members of ISIL, the al-Nusra Front and other al-Qaeda-linked organizations.

Why didn't they listen to Erdogan?

by Aydogan Vatandas - President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become an international figure; it is probably the first time so many people outside Turkey know the name of the country's president since the presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey.

However, during his UN summit speech yesterday, many of the seats in the hall were empty, and it is safe to say that Erdoğan spoke only to a small group of listeners.

The main reason for this shift is the fact that Erdoğan has already lost his credibility in the world even though he still has some support on the ground in Turkey. The last two elections in Turkey can be considered an indication that he still has the support of the majority of Turkish voters even though he has already made the country less democratic and openly vows to continue this process.