Category: Balkans

Turkish police have seized 4.8 tons of drugs and detained 1,780 people across the country in the last two weeks in narcotics operations, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Thursday on X. The “NARKOÇELİK-48” operations, which saw police seize 4.8 tons of drugs in addition to some 9.9 million pills, spanned 73 provinces, including Adana, Diyarbakır, Erzurum,...

The Serbian government has declared November 2 (Saturday) a national day of mourning for those who died in the tragic accident when the concrete roof above the entrance of the Novi Sad railway station collapsed on Friday. Macedonian citizen Vasko Sazdovski (1979), a Macedonian national, is among the 14 victims of the accident. Moreover, three...

The recent disclosure of the will and material legacy of the late Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has revealed a notarized document that grants the “Cascade Trust” foundation authority over the royalties from the cleric’s books, the TR724 news website reported on Thursday. Gülen passed away on October 20, 2024, at the age of 83, at...

A delegation headed by Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski is attending the EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Forum on Justice and Home Affairs taking place October 28-29 in Budva, Montenegro. According to the Interior Ministry, Toshkovski delivered a speech at the forum, where the main topics of discussion included the fight against transnational organized crime and illicit trafficking...

Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has announced that 706 children are currently living with their mothers in Turkish prisons, according to a report by the Gazete Duvar news website on Friday. Tunç revealed some prison statistics in response to a parliamentary question from human rights advocate and MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy...

At least 14 people have died in flooding and landslides in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a spokesman for the government of the Herzegovina-Neretva canton told Bosnian media on Friday. The mountainous region about 30 kilometres north of the city of Mostar, in the south of the country, is the worst affected. Local media reported that heavy...

Turkish police have detained 13 students in an operation based in the southern province of Mersin over their alleged links to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group targeted by the government, the İhlas news agency (İHA) reported on Thursday. The detentions were carried out as part of simultaneous raids conducted in the provinces of Mersin,...

Turkish annual inflation slowed less than expected in September to 49.4 percent, official data showed Thursday, a figure that analysts said could disappoint central bank officials after a series of interest rate hikes, Agence France-Presse reported. Turkey’s central bank began to raise rates last year in efforts to battle soaring prices, after President Recep Tayyip...

In the most recent turn of events in Turkey’s ongoing crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement, authorities have apprehended a former judge and a former prosecutor who were being sought due to their alleged ties to the movement, the private DHA and IHA news agencies reported. The Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen,...