News archive of June 2020

The initiative has been enjoying cross-partisan support, however the opposition Left abstained from voting today because they had failed to push through a proposal declaring Sports Day a bank holiday.

Bosnia's main Bosniak and Croat parties have finally struck a breakthrough deal on how to rule the ethnically-divided southwestern city of Mostar, paving the way for the first local elections to be held there since 2008. 

Indebted eurozone countries such as Greece or Italy need European Union grants rather than loans to deal with the impact of the coronavirus crisis, European Central Bank Vice-President Luis de Guindos said on Wednesday.

Sweden will lift its advice against non-essential travel to 10 European countries from June 30, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The countries are Greece, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, France, Iceland, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Turkish jets violated Greek airspace on Wednesday for the first time after 26 days, with several F-16 fighter jets entering Athens' Flight Information Region (FIR) without submitting a flight plan, according to the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (GEETHA).

Between 3 and 4 p.m., pairs of jets flew three times over Oinouses, four times over Panagia and one northeast of Chios.

Close aides of the Greek Prime Minister on Wednesday sought to put an end to talks of an imminent cabinet reshuffle saying that, after returning from his two-day visit to Israel, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he does not intend to go through with it "in the coming days."

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) chair Hakan Fidan visited Libya on June 17 for official meetings.

The delegation met with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

Police on Wednesday detained a woman in connection with the disappearance of a 10-year-old girl in Thessaloniki last week.

The woman is believed to be an acquaintance of the child's family and may in the past have lived in the same neighborhood as her.

Officers found her on the beach of the town of Katerini and led her to Thessaloniki's Security Division.

The 2019-2020 Champions League, suspended since March because of the coronavirus pandemic, will be completed in a 'Final Eight' in Lisbon in August instead of Istanbul, UEFA said on June 17.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on June 17 met with the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) at the presidential palace.

Erdoğan was expected to inform the MHP leader about the recent military operations into northern Iraq, Operation Claw-Tiger and Operation Claw-Eagle, along with recent developments in Libya.