Author: Steven Sahiounie

Doing his duty as a voting citizen in Türkiye’s local elections on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cast his ballot in the metropolis of Istanbul. After voting in the city’s Uskudar district, Erdogan stressed the importance of participation in the elections, urging all eligible citizens to come out and make their choice. This election will mark the beginning of a new era in our country,” he told reporters after voting. Mentioning last year’s hard-fought parliamentary and presidential elections followed by this year’s local elections, he said: “I hope that these will be instrumental in the beginning of a new era,…

Iran celebrated the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic on Sunday, with different governmental bodies renewing their pledge to protect the country’s national interests and strive to achieve the Islamic Revolution of 1979’s ideals. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday on the occasion of the Islamic Republic Day, which marks the holding of a 1979 historic referendum, in which Iranians voted overwhelmingly in favor of departure from monarchical rule weeks after the collapse of the US-backed Pahlavi regime. “We renew our pledge to the visionary nation of Iran to safeguard national interests in international arenas with regard…

Polling in Türkiye’s local elections began Sunday with more than 61 million voters eligible to cast ballots in the country’s 81 provinces. Voting started at 7 a.m. local time and will continue through 4 p.m. in 32 eastern provinces and in the remaining provinces, polling stations will open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. Some 1.32 million young people are voting for the first time. With candidates from 34 political parties competing, more than 206,000 polling stations have been set up nationwide. A total of 81 provincial, 973 district, and 390 township mayors along with 50,336 mukhtars, as…

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Saturday that “famine” in Gaza can be dealt with in a short time if Israel opened the land crossings for aid to enter.Safadi made the comments at a press conference with his Egyptian and French counterparts in Cairo.The UN and partners have warned that famine could occur in devastated, largely isolated northern Gaza as early as this month A three-ship convoy left a port in Cyprus on Saturday with 400 tonnes of food and other supplies for Gaza as concerns about hunger in the territory soar.World Central Kitchen said the vessels and a…

Ukraine must take into account the fact that its borders have changed drastically since the beginning of its conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, commenting on the prospects for peace talks. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky suggested in an interview with CBS News that a return to 1991 borders was no longer a precondition for negotiations with Russia. However, he still insisted that Kiev must regain the territory it lost to Moscow in 2022. That year, four former Ukrainian territories – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a public…

he UK’s main opposition party has suffered a sharp fall in membership over its policies on Gaza and green investment, The Guardian reported. Figures from the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee show that more than 23,000 people have canceled their membership over the last two months. It follows controversies over the party leadership’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and a decision to abandon a commitment to spend $35 billion on a green investment plan. Despite the membership losses, however, Labour still holds a commanding lead in UK opinion polling, suggesting it will take government at the next election,…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has again assured of his country’s assistance to Ukraine, saying that it is necessary due to Germany’s security interests. “We all aspire to a more peaceful world,” he said in his Easter video address to the nation. Scholz noted that peace cannot exist without justice and therefore, Germany will “support Ukraine in its fight for a just world for as long as necessary.” “We are also doing this for our sake, for our security,” he insisted. Germany is the second-largest arms supplier to Ukraine after the US. Berlin has so far allocated some €28 bln in military…

This evening, a 23-year-old youth was injured by gunfire in a terror attack carried out by Israeli colonists on the town of Makhmas, located northeast of occupied Jerusalem. Eyewitnesses told WAFA correspondent that at least 30 colonists stormed the town of Makhmas from the eastern side during the iftar time, smashing the windows of several vehicles and firing live ammunition at civilians. The assailants also assaulted young men who resisted them during their rampage into the town, resulting in one youth being shot with live ammunition and three others sustaining injuries and bruises from the assault. The Palestinian Red Crescent…

Ukraine’s path to peace and security could lie in establishing a buffer zone next to the Russian border, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. With the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in its third year, the Western flow of military and financial aid to Ukraine is dwindling, while its army is losing ground. Orban suggested that now is the time for a ceasefire, Hungarian magazine Mandiner wrote on Friday, quoting the prime minister’s interview with former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel in Budapest. There is no remaining “reasonable dispute between Russia and the West,” Orban added. “People in Europe are not happy…

Russian border guards were deployed to the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the personal request of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin recounted in an interview with Armenia’s 24News media outlet. Referring to the Russian border guards who were deployed to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border at Russia’s expense, the Russian diplomat said that the idea behind the move was to assist in stabilizing the situation there in 2020. Armenia “never moved to legitimize the deployment of Russian border troops,” Kopyrkin lamented. Source: TASS