News archive of February 2018

Beta agency cited a VS press release to report that the exercise will be held March 6-29, and that "people, cattle, and vehicles" will be prohibited from accessing or staying in the area during that time.

The VS specified that this concerns the village of Kusice, and includes Kolarica, Kosevi, Ornice, Donji Peskovi, Sadnice, and Topolje facilities.

Albanian police chief Ardi Veliu on Wednesday said police had found more than 613 kilos of pure heroin hidden in a banana container from Colombia.

The drugs were transited through Malta and Italy before arriving at their destination, a fruit and vegetable trader in Albania, called Arbri Garden.

A draft law revising Turkey’s 33-year-old value-added tax (VAT) law has been sent to parliament, Finance Minister Naci Ağbal has stated. 

Macedonia's government on Tuesday stripped Jason Miko, a public champion of the former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, of his title as honorary Macedonian consul in the US state of Arizona.

Until it closed in mid-2017, Miko was a regular columnist for one of the most prominent Macedonian dailies, Dnevnik, in which he defended the policies of the then ruling party.

Turkey expects to receive its first batch of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealth fighter jets within the next 12 months, Turkish media report.

The exact number is not specified.

Some 40 undocumented migrants have been detained on the Eastern Express, a popular train service linking Ankara with the eastern province of Kars, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Feb. 28. 

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said there could be an “alliance of principles” for the upcoming 2019 elections, for which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are endorsing the candidacy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and pushing for a legislative amendment allowing pre-election alliances. 

One person was killed and another was wounded when a dry cargo ship exploded in the Black Sea province of Sinop on Feb. 28, Doğan News Agency reported. 

Cyprus's president has said a resumption of talks to reunify the ethnically divided island nation is unlikely any time soon because of Turkey's blockade of an offshore gas search and "unacceptable" demands by breakaway Turkish Cypriots.

Two runaways who had escaped from a prison in the western Turkish province of Manisa have been found by the local gendarmerie units sleeping near a road, Doğan News Agency reported on Feb. 28.