Category: People

Guest Views
“These young men put their lives on the line for their country and made the ultimate sacrifice, it’s essential that, as a whole country, a whole people, we honour their memory”, writes Sapper Patrick Cengiz Azimkar’s mother

Although the Cyprus Regiment in World War II has been the community’s major focus of Turkish Cypriots’ bravery and sacrifice for the United Kingdom, they have also fought in modern wars for Britain. A Haringey British Turkish Cypriot, 21-year-old Royal Engineer Patrick Azimkar, was gunned down by the IRA at the Massereene Barracks in Antrim, […]

Columnists
A triumph of sensationalism over virtue, Braverman’s ‘Illegal’ Migration Act will cost lives

The Illegal Migration Bill is now on Britain’s statute book. A total of 289 MPs voted in favour of the bill, giving the Home Secretary unprecedented powers to make arrangements for the detention and deportation of migrants, while 230 MPs voted against. Sensationalism rather than ‘virtue’, in Aristotle’s use of the term, has won again. […]

Features
Can the Central Bank of Turkiye’s first female governor, Hafize Gaye Erkan, tame the country’s rampant inflation?

Last month, Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made history when he appointed Hafize Gaye Erkan as the governor of the Central Bank of Turkiye – the first ever woman to head the 93-year-old financial institution. Erkan enters the financial fray in her motherland armed with an impressive biography as she bids to find the optimum […]

Features
Turkiye mourns the passing of one its greatest musicians, violin virtuoso Suna Kan

Tributes have been paid to one of Turkiye’s greatest musicians, violinist Suna Kan, who died at the weekend aged 86. The virtuoso enjoyed a celebrated solo, orchestral and teaching career in Turkiye and abroad. Kan was described as “The symbolic name of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s ‘music revolution’” by Andante Magazine. Paying tribute with a series […]

Columnists
Eid in the Square 2023 was amazing, but where were the Turks?

I attended the Mayor of London’s annual Eid in the Square celebration in Trafalgar Square last weekend. It was a joyous riot of colour and noise, and the delicious smells lingering around from the edge towards thousands of people watching the activities on the main stage. The moon was visible overhead in the clear blue […]