By Michael Hernandez - WASHINGTON -AA -  The U.S. said Wednesday it is "committed to its strategic partnership with Turkey to bring stability to the region and defeat terrorism in all its forms" amid a row sparked by comments from a senior Trump administration official. "We appreciate Turkey’s efforts to increase its border security, stem the flow of foreign fighters through its territory and fight on the ground to clear ISIS from key towns in Syria," a National Security Council spokesman told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Daesh.

A panel of experts in Washington held discussions Tuesday on a political solution to Syria’s ongoing civil war. Hosted by Washington-based think tank SETA DC, the discussion was titled “The Geneva Process: Toward a Political Solution in Syria”. Mona Yacoubian, a senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Andrew Tabler, Martin J. Gross Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Hassan Hassan, a senior fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, and Kadir Ustun, executive director at SETA DC, took part in the panel. The discussion was moderated by Kilic Kanat, a research director at SETA DC. Participants agreed that actual developments in the field in Syria as well as peace talks in Astana and Geneva would directly affect a political process in the country.

By Patrick Sisson - Curbed.com - For Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of the Greek yogurt-making giant Chobani, Twin Falls, Idaho, helped his company expand in ways he could barely imagine when he arrived in the United States in 1994 as a Turkish college student who didn’t speak English. The small city of 48,000 in the Magic Valley, an agricultural center in the southern part of the state, home to the company’s 1 million-square-foot factory, will soon be the centerpiece of a new chapter for Chobani, one of the last decade’s most successful new food brands.

The US case against the Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab turned against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy CEO of Turkey's Halkbank, after Zarrab pleaded guilty and made an agreement with the New York prosecutor’s office. A US prosecutor ordered the arrest of an Iranian-Turkish businessman in March 2016 for breaching US sanctions on Iran. After two months, those sanctions were lifted. Preet Bharara announced in a social media post, “Reza Zarrab to soon face American justice in a Manhattan courtroom.” Zarrab has been under arrest for more than 22 months, and has been accused of money laundering, and fraud against the US and its banking system. However, before the first day of his trial, his role was changed from a defendant to a witness.