ISTANBUL: Turks were voting on Sunday in municipal elections, with all eyes on Istanbul, the national “jewel” that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to pry away from the opposition.
But there appeared no excess of enthusiasm at polling stations, AFP correspondents reported, to a backdrop of raging inflation and massive devaluation.
“Everyone is worried about the day to day,” said Guler Kaya, admitting she had had to stop going out.
“The crisis is swallowing up the middle class, we have had to change all our habits,” said the 43-year-old.
“If Erdogan wins, it will get even worse,” she added.
In the capital Ankara, Meliha Sonmez sounded a warning as she prepared to vote: “This election is not just municipal.”
“If Erdogan loses the ballot, he will be weakened,” said the retired woman in her 60s who lost 32 relatives in the devastating February 2023 earthquake in Hatay.
Erdogan may not be a candidate in the municipal vote, but his name has dominated from campaigning to voting day.
His road to power in Turkiye began in Istanbul when he was elected mayor of the mythic city straddling Europe and Asia in 1994.
His allies held the city until Ekrem Imamoglu of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) wrested control five years ago, generating international headlines.
As soon as Erdogan clinched re-election as president last May — he has held the position since 2014 — he launched the battle to reclaim the city of 16 million people.
“Istanbul is the jewel, the treasure and the apple of our country’s eye,” the 70-year-old leader said at a recent rally in the city.
“Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkiye,” Erman Bakirci, a pollster from Konda Research and Consultancy, recalled Erdogan once saying.
Armed clashes were reported from a village in Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast with voting underway, leaving one dead and 12 wounded, a local official told AFP.
The Turkish president has named former environment minister Murat Kurum as his candidate.
Polls gave Imamoglu a slight lead, but analysts caution that opinion polls in Turkiye have been wrong before and that the outcome is far from certain.
The 2019 vote was controversially annulled, but Imamoglu won the re-run vote by an even greater margin, which turned him into an instant hero for Turkiye’s notoriously fractured opposition and a formidable foe for Erdogan.
If Imamoglu manages to retain the Istanbul mayor’s seat, he’ll likely be the main challenger to the ruling party in the next presidential elections, set for 2028.
The election is being held with inflation at a whopping 67 percent and with a massive devaluation of the lira, which slid from 19 to a dollar to 31 to a dollar in one year. Analysts say this could work in favor of the opposition.
Erdogan threw all his energy into campaigning for his candidate.
On Saturday, he appeared at three campaign rallies in Istanbul, pressing his message that Imamoglu, whose name he never mentions, is a “part-time mayor” consumed by presidential ambitions.
“Istanbul has been left to its own devices these past five years. We hope to save it from disaster,” he said.
Imamoglu focused his campaign on local issues and defended his achievements in office.
“Every vote you give to the CHP will mean more metros, creches, green spaces, social benefits and investment,” he has promised.
Some 61 million voters are picking mayors across Turkiye’s 81 provinces, as well as provincial council members and other local officials.
The opposition has been fractured ahead of the polls, in contrast with the local elections five years ago.
This time around the main opposition party, the social democrat CHP, has failed to rally support behind a single candidate.
And the pro-Kurdish DEM party, the third largest in the 600-seat parliament, is fielding two candidates for Istanbul mayor, whereas in the 2019 race it agreed to stay out of the vote to implicitly support the opposition.
Polls opened at 0400 GMT in the east of the country and were due to close at 1400 GMT in the west, including Istanbul.
The first estimates are expected to be released late on Sunday.
Istanbul top prize as Turkiye votes in local polls
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Istanbul top prize as Turkiye votes in local polls
- The race is on for key cities as Turkey holds local elections in test of Erdogan's popularity
Palestinian Authority welcomes French president’s affirmation of recognizing statehood during UK parliament speech
- Emmanuel Macron said attacks in Gaza and West Bank put the prospect of Palestinian statehood at risk
- He called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been launching military campaigns since late 2023
LONDON: The Palestinian Authority welcomed on Wednesday the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron during his state visit to the UK, in which he affirmed Paris’ position to recognize a Palestinian state as a way to ensure stability in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said that Macron is leading French efforts to revive the peace process with the Israeli government and contribute to implementing the two-state solution.
During his speech at the UK parliament on Tuesday, Macron said, “With Gaza in ruin and the West Bank being attacked on a daily basis, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is.
“And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is … the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region,” Macron said.
Organizers of a planned international conference sponsored by Saudi Arabia and France in mid-June had to postpone the event due to the Iranian-Israeli conflict that erupted. Several Labour lawmakers from the UK’s ruling party have called on Kier Starmer’s government to recognize a Palestinian state and to join France in this effort.
Macron also called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been launching military campaigns since late 2023 following Hamas’ cross-border raids on Israeli towns.
The Palestinian Authority urged European countries that have yet to recognize Palestine to support and follow France’s position, according to Wafa news agency.
Jailed Kurdish militant leader urges PKK fighters to disarm
- Abdullah Ocalan addresses supporters days before scheduled symbolic disarmament ceremony - a first concrete step in peace process with Turkiye
- Jailed leader says peace initiative has reached stage that requires practical steps
ANKARA, Turkiye: The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group renewed Wednesday a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state.
In a seven-minute video message broadcast on media close to the militants, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, declared that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps.
“It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations of the (Turkish parliament) and its commission, dispels public doubts, and fulfills our commitments,” Ocalan said. “I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I call on you to put this principle into practice.”
In his video message — his first public appearance since being seen during his trial more than two decades ago — Ocalan, 76, also expressed his support for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to help oversee the peace initiative.
The PKK leader, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, first urged the PKK in February to convene a congress and formally dissolve itself. Responding to his call, the PKK announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities.
Ocalan’s call to end the fighting marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.
His message broadcast on Wednesday appeared to be aimed at convincing fighters who may still be hesitant about abandoning armed struggle. He delivered his message flanked by fellow inmates.
In a speech to lawmakers from his ruling party, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he expected imminent progress in the peace initiative, adding that once firmly established, the effort would benefit not only Turkiye but the broader region. Erdogan also expressed hope that the process would advance without attempts to sabotage it.
“Once the wall of terror is torn town, God willing, everything will change. More pain and tears will be prevented,” Erdogan said. “The winners of this (process) will be the whole of Turkiye — Turks, Kurds and Arabs. Then it will be our entire region.”
“We hope that this auspicious process will conclude successfully as soon as possible, without any road accidents, and without it being sabotaged by dark and corrupt circles,” he said.
In a first step toward the PKK’s disarmament process, a group of its fighters is expected later this week to lay down their arms in a symbolic ceremony to be held in Sulaymaniyah, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Aysegul Dogan, the spokeswoman for Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party said the symbolic laying down of arms would take place on Friday.
“We consider this to be a historic moment and a historic development,” she said, adding that representatives from the party would travel to Sulaymaniyah to witness the event.
Zagros Hiwar, a PKK spokesman, said that a group of 20 to 30 fighters would descend from the mountains and destroy their weapons in front of civil society organizations and invited observers.
The PKK has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases in the area.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad announced last year an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been prohibited in Turkiye.
On Tuesday, Turkiye’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, traveled to Baghdad to discuss the peace process and other security issues with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and other officials, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Israel army says launched ‘special, targeted operations’ in south Lebanon
- Israel has kept up its strikes on Lebanon, despite a November truce with Hezbollah
- Israel's military claimed it carried out operations in Labbouneh and Jabal Blat
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Wednesday its troops entered southern Lebanon as part of targeted operations to dismantle infrastructure belonging to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
“Following intelligence information and the identification of Hezbollah weapons and terrorist infrastructure in several areas of southern Lebanon, the soldiers launched special, targeted operations to dismantle them and prevent Hezbollah from reestablishing itself in the area,” an army statement said.
The military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on whether this was the first time Israeli troops had operated on the ground in Lebanon since a November ceasefire.
But the army shared a video captioned “footage from a targeted nighttime operation of the 9th Brigade in southern Lebanon,” showing troops walking on the ground.
AFP was unable to verify the footage, the time or location it was shot.
The army statement said the 9th Brigade was in the Labbouneh area, just over the border. Troops from the 300th Brigade operated in the Jabal Blat area further west, also within sight of the frontier.
Despite a November truce with Hezbollah, Israel has kept up its strikes on Lebanon, mainly saying it is targeting the group’s sites and operatives but also occasionally members of their Palestinian ally Hamas.
The November 27 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war that left the group severely weakened.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five places it deems strategic.
Armenia, Azerbaijan to meet for peace talks in UAE Thursday
- The announcement came a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed hope for a swift peace deal between the Caucasus neighbors
BAKU: The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates for peace talks, two days after the US expressed hope for a swift deal.
Baku and Yerevan fought two wars over the disputed Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured from Armenian forces in a lightning offensive in 2023, prompting the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians.
The arch foes agreed on the text of a comprehensive peace deal in March, but Baku has since outlined a host of demands — including amendments to Armenia’s constitution to drop its territorial claims for the Karabakh — before signing the document.
On Wednesday, the Armenian government said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet the following day in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, “within the framework of the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
The Azerbaijani presidency issued an identical statement.
The announcement came a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed hope for a swift peace deal between the Caucasus neighbors.
Aliyev and Pashinyan last met on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Albania in May.
Iraq’s Kurdistan enjoys all-day state electricity
- The region’s electricity minister, Kamal Mohammed, said residents were now enjoying “uninterrupted, cleaner, and more affordable electricity”
Irbil: More than 30 percent of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region now has 24-hour state electricity, authorities said Thursday, with plans to extend full coverage by the end of 2026.
The northern region of Kurdistan has long promoted itself as a haven of relative stability in an otherwise volatile country.
Despite Iraq’s vast oil wealth, the national grid struggles to meet demand, leaving most areas reliant on imported energy and subject to frequent power cuts.
“Today, two million people across the Kurdistan region enjoy 24-hour electricity... that’s 30 percent of the population,” including the cities of Irbil, Duhok and Sulaimaniyah, said regional prime minister Masrour Barzani.
In 2024, the Kurdistan Regional Government launched “Project Runaki” to deliver round-the-clock power in a region where, like much of Iraq, residents often turn to costly and polluting private generators.
The region’s electricity minister, Kamal Mohammed, said residents were now enjoying “uninterrupted, cleaner, and more affordable electricity.”
“Rollout to other areas is expected to be completed by the end of 2026,” he told AFP.
As part of the transition, roughly 30 percent of the 7,000 private generators operating across Kurdistan have already been decommissioned, he said, a move that has contributed to an estimated annual reduction of nearly 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions.
The project also aims to lower household electricity bills, offering a cheaper alternative to the combined cost of grid power and private generator fees.
However, bills will still depend on consumption and are likely to increase during peak summer and winter months.
Mohammed said the project’s success hinges on the introduction of “smart” meters to curb electricity theft, as well as a new tariff system to promote responsible usage.
“More power has been added to the grid to support 24/7 access,” he said.
Kurdistan has doubled its gas production in the past five years, and most of the power supply comes from local gas production, Mohammed said.
Despite Iraq’s abundant oil and gas reserves, years of conflict have devastated its infrastructure.
The country remains heavily reliant on imports, particularly from neighboring Iran, which frequently interrupts supply. It also imports electricity from Jordan and Turkiye, while seeking to boost its own gas output.
“We stand ready to offer our technical support and assistance” to the federal government, Mohammed said.
In Irbil, resident Bishdar Attar, 38, said the biggest change was the absence of noisy and polluting generators.
“The air is now clear,” he said. “We can now use home appliances freely... as needed.”
