Discrimination and silence: minority foundations in Turkey during the Cyprus conflict of 1974

In 1974, the dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus resulted in Turkish military intervention in the island. The same year, the Turkish Court of Cassation issued a legal decision that rendered possible the confiscation of properties belonging to minority foundations in the years to come. I argue that the case of minority foundations in 1974 was not a coincidence but a conscious reciprocal discrimination applied in both official and unofficial spheres. I support my argument with the following indicators: (1) the wider historical Greek–Turkish conflict and its ‘reciprocal’ nature of discrimination against non‐Muslim minorities; (2) the laden interpretation of the non‐Muslim minorities as the internal enemies in the Turkish mind‐set and its direct reflections on the 1974 case of foundations; and (3) the nature of the press coverage, which I assess using detailed reading and content analysis of three Turkish newspapers (H ürriyet, T ercüman, C umhuriyet) and one Rum minority newspaper (A poyevmatini).     

Reflections on the Transformation in Mexico

This article offers panoramic portrait of Mexican politics since the election victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena movement in July 2018. Along its path to overwhelming success, Morena presented a vision of a historic transformation of a thoroughly corrupted Mexican state. Morena’s opponents viewed its emergence with anxiety, as a radical, populist, leftist force. But the new regime has been extremely cautious, affirming existing geopolitical and security commitments and pursuing conservative macroeconomic policies. Working within these constraints, the López Obrador government has largely focused on a moral transformation of the state. The context of Morena’s victory was the ongoing collapse in the Mexican state’s monopoly of force and its historic complicity with criminal and paramilitary violence. The government’s post-election approach has included a public reckoning with state crimes, from 1968 to Ayotzinapa. But its primary strategy has been one of ostentatious political asceticism. Rhetorically, this encompasses ideas of ‘political love’ and ‘republican austerity’; in practical terms, it includes campaigns of public frugality and the performative vulnerability of the president himself. In closing, we analyse the proposed National Guard, arguably the centrepiece of Morena’s putative state transformation, a policy condemned by some as renewed militarisation in the name of utopian republicanism.     

西安市十六国至北朝时期长安城宫城遗址的钻探与试掘

2003年,对西安市楼阁台遗址进行钻探,发现东西并列的两个小城,及城内的主要道路和部分建筑遗址,并在西小城南墙北侧进行试掘,出土遗物大部分为建筑材料。西小城南墙可能始建于十六国时期,沿用至北朝时期。东、西小城应是自前赵以来,经前后秦、北朝直至隋初长安城的东西宫城遗址。     

Characterization of Iron age pottery from eastern Turkey by laser- induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)

Selected pottery sherds coming from the Ayanis, Dilkaya and Karagündüz excavations in eastern Turkey and dated from the Early to Middle Iron Age were examined as regards their composition by using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The objective of the study was first to investigate the potential of the LIBS technique in the compositional analysis of pottery and further to explore correlations in spectral data, by using chemometrics methods that would possibly enable discrimination among different sherds. This work is part of a broader study aiming to examine clay variability both before and during the Urartian State period and to explore possible relationships and differences among pottery objects from fortresses and settlements or settlements and cemeteries on the basis of the clay composition of sherds. Preliminary results demonstrate that by using the LIBS technique it is possible to analyse pottery sherds in qualitative and semi-quantitative ways, providing information on the clay and slip composition. Furthermore, encouraging results have been obtained by carrying out principal component analysis (PCA) on the LIBS spectra, which suggest that in certain cases, it is possible to directly correlate spectral information with the origin of pottery sherds.     

The Limits of Turkish–Iranian Cooperation, 1974–80

Why did Turkey and Iran fail to become close partners in the 1970s even though they had compelling reasons to do so? This article argues that mutual distrust between Turkish and Iranian leaders, domestic turmoil in the two countries, and diverging geostrategic priorities undermined Ankara and Tehran's efforts to deepen their relations. While the shah of Iran saw his country as the policeman of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, successive governments in Turkey continued to look west for their security. As economic and political turmoil engulfed the two countries, leading to a revolution in Iran in 1979 and a coup in Turkey in 1980, Iranian and Turkish leaders could not forge a lasting partnership.