President Barack Obama plans some intense Mideast diplomacy this month and next, welcoming leaders of Turkey, Jordan and two Gulf states for Oval Office talks on Syria and broader developments in the Mideast. The White House said President Obama will welcome Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for talks on May 16. The two men established a close personal and working relationship in Obama's first term, which has carried over into Obama's second term as they grapple with the situation in Syria, among other issues.
The chairman of the Greek-Turkish Business Council, Dimitris Papanicolaou, has told the Anatolia news that Turkish companies could take over factories closing in Greece in a last-ditch bid to keep them open and keep people working. “Every day 1,000 people are losing their jobs in Greece and we΄d appreciate the interest of Turkish businessmen in these factories,” Papanicolaou said, showing how desperate Greece has become during a crushing economic crisis that has seen more than 68,000 businesses close since 2010.
Former U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, has avoided an order to repay roughly $500,000 that the House Ethics Committee ruled she wrongly accepted in legal fees from a Turkish-American group. The order stems from a U.S. House committee ruling that Schmidt violated House rules when she let the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund pay for a slew of legal battles against her 2008 Democratic opponent David Krikorian. While the committee found her error wasn’t intentional and decided not to sanction her, it said she “must disclose and repay the improper gift.”
In 2010, Temel Kotil, CEO of Turkish Airlines (TK/THY), surprised the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) by announcing that TK’s goal was to become the world’s largest airline. Three years later, THY has the largest international network and serves more international points than any other airline: by any measure, a very quick achievement of a daunting goal. But that is just a waypoint in the ongoing remaking of Turkish Airlines.
