Iraq

U.S. Senator John McCain met with members of the Syrian opposition in Gaziantep on July 1 amid a warning from fragmented rebels that they will lay down their arms in a week if they do not receive aid in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

President: Any news on the hostage crisis?

Foreign Minister: President, remember, our diplomats are not being kept hostage, they are merely being interned. No one should test our patience and…

President: Stop it, will you? Where are they now?

Foreign Minister: They have been safely transferred to a location in our southern neighbor.
President: Syria?

The largest business organization launches a two-phase study on securing and sustaining business in violence-hit Iraq as companies

Iraq’s Kurds will hold an independence referendum within months, their leader Masoud Barzani said July1.

Barzani said the time was right for a vote as Iraq was already effectively divided following the gains by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The 'Vladeasa' Recon Battalion no. 317 has earned tens of national and international medals for the missions it carried out in its 45 years of activity in the elite of the Romanian Army, an anniversary occasion marked these days.

Iraq's new parliament, charged with approving a new government and facing a blistering offensive by Sunni militants, descended into chaos Tuesday, with some lawmakers threatening each other and others walking out.
      

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has said he hopes the Turkish hostages in Iraq will be released in the “near future; [hopefully] during Ramadan.”

Comprehensive efforts are underway for the release of 80 Turkish nationals in Mosul who were abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Arınç told reporters at a press conference late June 30.

The United States is ramping up its military presence in Iraq, deploying around 300 additional troops as well as helicopters and drone aircraft in response security concerns in Baghdad, officials said on June 30.

The Arab Spring has turned out to be a massive failure.

It did not bring democracy to the Arab peoples.

It brought a new era of coup d’etats like in Egypt, chaos and division like in Libya, and civil war and the decomposition of existing borders in Syria and Iraq.

“I have rarely been to a country where everyone is so consummated by politics; that’s wonderful. Turks love to talk politics, but as an economist, I focus on the structural side of the economy and we accept the environment as it is.”

This is the answer I received from Word Bank Turkey director Martin Raiser.