Isak Haleva

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to give an update on his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the Presidential Communications Directorate announced on April 27.

Turkey's Jewish community celebrated Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, on Nov. 28 at major synagogues across the country.

"I hope and wish that Hanukkah will enlighten our souls and cause the feelings of love, respect and brotherhood among people to develop," İsak Haleva, the chief rabbi of Turkey's Jews, said in his message.

Polish President Andrzej Sebastian Duda has inaugurated a monument erected in the Latin Catholic Cemetery in Istanbul's Şişli district in honor of Wojciech Rychlewicz, a Polish diplomat who served as the mission chief in his country's consulate-general to Istanbul during World War II.

Sahak Maşalyan (Mashalian), the 85th Patriarch of Turkey's Armenians, was enthroned as Sahak II in a ceremony held at the Surp Asdvadzadzin Patriarchate Church in Istanbul on Jan 11.

Born in 1962 in Istanbul with the Turkish name Şahin Maşalı, he was ordained a priest in 1992, receiving the name Sahak.

A ceremony to remember the sinking of the Struma vessel, in which 764 Jews died in the Black Sea while trying to escape the Holocaust, was held in Istanbul Feb. 24.