★ The war in Ukraine may prove to be another of the fortunes of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, allowing him to advance the idea that Turkey is a global leader of the standing of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, wrote Steven Cook. Mr. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for the Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

  Pointing out that Turkey was isolated internationally just a few months ago and had difficult relations with every regional country. Its long-time ally U.S. has been ignoring it mostly, but from time to time, criticized president Erdoğan's government.

  Now president Erdoğan is acting as a peacemaker between Ukraine and Russia. He invited them to Istanbul Tuesday for a meeting.

  Mr. Erdoğan's close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin may help him in his effort. However, Mr. Putin may be too deep into Ukraine to withdraw.

  The meeting in Istanbul ended with a discussion on a cease-fire. Whether the cease-fire will happen or not is another matter, Steven Cook wrote.

★ On April 1, Ethem Sancak, a pro-government businessman, resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party, after saying that the party came to power 20 years ago with the support of the United States, reports the Turkish daily Duvar.

  Mr. Sancak was talking at a conference at a university.

  His comments stirred a huge reaction inside the party, and the party bosses referred him to the party's Istanbul Provincial Disciplinary Board with a definitive expulsion request from the party.

  During the conference earlier this week, Sancak also took a swipe at Turkey's membership in NATO. "In fact, Turkey is constantly at war with NATO and the West. We are a member of NATO, and we have been NATO's guardians for 70 years. Is there a single contribution NATO has made to this country in all its 70 years?" he said.

  "They didn't let us build pistols. NATO is a cancer of the past within us. Even if we don't go out, they're going to kick us out anyway," he further said.

  In our news two weeks ago, we brought to you that Mr. Sancak appeared on a Russian TV and criticized the Turkish sales of drones to Ukraine. Ukrainians have been using these drones effectively in their war against the Russian forces.

★ A Turkish lawyer who has been receiving death threats since 2017 has lost his police protection after he quit his membership with the ruling Justice and Development Party and joined the main opposition Republican Peoples Party.

  Lawyer Cevdet Nasıranlı has deemed the move "unlawful" and "political," pointing out that the government bypassed the judiciary.

  Mr. Nasıranlı was also serving as the chairman of the pro-government Anatolian Lions Businessman's Association. After he resigned from the justice and development party, the association dismissed him from his position.

★ Turkey's parliament on March 31 passed a law lowering the minimum required votes for a party to enter parliament to 7% from 10%, in a move that could reduce the likelihood of early elections this year, reports the daily Duvar.

  President Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party and its far-right Nationalist Movement Party allies had presented the draft election law, which included regulations on parliamentary seat distribution in alliances between parties, to parliament on March 14.

  The ruling alliance gets very unfavorable ratings in public opinion surveys lately. Analysts say they may not be able to win in the elections scheduled for 2023.

  According to recent polls, support for the Justice and Development Party has dipped to around 31% from 42.6% in the 2018 election. The support for Nationalist Action Party has fallen to 7% from 11.1%. Together they hold 333 seats in the 600-seat parliament.

★ The Turkish Justice Ministry has found it appropriate that the trial concerning the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi be transferred to Saudi Arabia, as Turkey seeks to mend ties with Riyadh, according to the online news outlet Diken.

  Khashoggi, a critique of the Saudi Arabian regime, never appeared back from a Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. At the time, reports said that a hit squad from Saudi Arabia murdered him and disposed of his body.

  At the time, Mr. Erdoğan's government was on unfriendly terms with Saudi Arabia and pursued the lawsuit vigorously.

  In reaction to this, Saudi Arabia cut Turkish exports by 90%.

★ Selahattin Demirtaş, The jailed former leader of the pro-Kurdish peoples Democratic Party, is facing new charges. Mr. Demirtaş has been in jail since 2016.

  A Turkish prosecutor is opening a lawsuit claiming that his tweet from nine years ago constitutes terrorism propaganda.

  In his tweet, Mr. Demirtaş included the phrase "Biji Serok Apo," Kurdish for "Long live Apo," referring to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

  Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union consider the Kurdistan Workers Party a terrorist organization.

★ According to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Turkish-German physician and businessman Uğur Şahin made it to the list.

  Dr. Uğur Şahin developed the first COVID-19 vaccine and partnered with Pfizer.

  The Turkish-German oncologist and immunologist's net worth stands at $7.8 billion, ranking him 305th. The index tracks the net worth of the 500 wealthiest people.

  His company's stocks rose by 900% since the development of the vaccine. In 2020 British daily financial times named him and his wife Özlem Türeci "the People of the Year."

★ After purchasing Russian-made air defense systems, the U.S. and other NATO allies got mad at Turkey, resulting in sanctions.

  President Erdoğan then started talking to manufacturers of Eurosam air defense systems. French and Italians jointly manufacture the air defense system.

  Mr. Erdoğan talked to the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi last week. When French President Emmanuel Macron visited Turkey recently, Mr. Erdoğan said he discussed this also with him.

  The three countries signed a declaration of intent for the joint production of Eurosam systems in 2017, followed by a contract signed in 2018. In January 2020, France froze the deal over Turkey's actions in northern Syria.

★ French actor Samy Naceri will play the lead role in a movie shot in Istanbul, reports the Anatolia News Agency.

  Naceri said, "Istanbul has all the necessary settings for a movie. I am happy to be a part of a movie shot in this city," he added.

  Stating that the first Turkish production he watched was "Miracle in the 7th Ward", the artist said, "I liked that movie very much."

  He said: "some Europeans are very mistaken in their prejudices against Turkey. With this film, we will show that Turkey is a leader in health tourism and has excellent nature."

  Sammy Naceri was born in 1961 in Paris to an Algerian Berber father and a French mother. He is known for his work in the four "Taxi" films and "The Code." He has starred in more than 30 films.

  He received the Best Male Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006.

★ This week, nine movies are released in Turkey. Turkish producers made seven of them.

  One of them is "Anatolian Leopard," which won awards from national festivals and the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is about the struggle of a zoo manager to prevent the institution from being privatized.

  Here is a synopsis of the films:

  Directed by Faik Ahmet Akıncı, "What if I Die" tells the story of a family whose newborn child is diagnosed with autism.

  The drama film "The Night of the Fire" tells the story of families in a village who try to change their daughters' looks and made them ugly to protect their daughters from drug lords.

  The drama film "Halil" tells a young man's life suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The man who wants to be "Halil" in the group he joined takes on duties that have connections with the state.

  "Doru Adventure Forest," brought to the attention of children and animation lovers, is about Alaca going camping in the forest.

  The movie "Osman Eight" tells a man's story suffering from agoraphobia while living in an old mansion with five fantastic monsters. Agoraphobia is a disorder characterized by intense fear or anxiety about being in open or public places.

  "Iblis: Owner of Darkness," in the horror genre, tells the struggle of Levent, who came to a dead end as a result of the possession of the treasure, which he reached with great efforts, by demons.

  "No: 26 Death Scream" is about Selin and her lover's life on the way to the summer house inherited from her grandfather.

★ Mersin state Opera and ballet gave a concert on Saturday to honor the Aşık Veysel.

  Ahmet Murat Gedikli was the conductor. Ferda Yetişer, Ünüşan Kuloğlu and Serkan Kocadere were soloists.

  The concert presented the works of the great bard.

  Aşık Veysel was born in 1894 in Turkey's East Central province of Sivas and passed away on March 21, 1973. He was a prominent representative of the Anatolian ashik tradition in the 20th century. When he was seven years old, he became completely blind due to smallpox.

  Turkish and foreign musicians use his music quite often. Among them are American rock guitarist Joe Satriani, Turkish classical music composer Fazıl Say, Turkish singers Selda Bağcan, Gülden Karaböcek, Hümeyra, Fikret Kızılok, and Esin Afşar.

★ Alaçatı Herb Festival took place for the 11th time last week. Alaçatı is a neighborhood in the Çeşme district of Turkey's Aegean province of Izmir.

  The public showed great interest in the festival, dubbed the "The Herald of the Spring."

  In addition to featuring numerous herb-related displays, the festival featured many other activities:

  Turkish pop musician Kenan Doğulu and jazz musician Ayhan Sicimoğlu gave concerts.

  The marching band took first place in the procession, followed by Aegean women with flower crowns and local dresses.

  There were various herbs in the market set up along the main street for three days, displaying all shades of green.

  Surfers took part in a race held in Alaçatı Bay, one of the best windsurfing bays in the world.

  Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, visited the festival. He addressed the people and said, "Today we are at a very precious festival. I felt the fertility of these beautiful lands and the power of production. You are great."

★ The digital culture and art magazine Kadıköy Mag organized a group exhibition titled "Know Your Enemy," offering a unique art experience.

  The venue was Istanbul's Asian district Kadıköy's Kargart. It brought together the striking works of 20 different artists in sculpture, painting, collage, and illustration.

  Tuna Mitrani, one of the curators, said: "We have other group exhibition projects ahead of us. We are currently working on our future exhibition projects with my team. We believe in the unifying power of music."

  Mitrani aims to go beyond the usual patterns in his future projects with live performances.

  The exhibition ended on April 1.

★ Turkey's Mediterranean city of Adana has many festivals this year, so much so that people now call it "the City of Festivals," reports the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet reporter Orhun Atmış.

  Last week the 23rd Sabancı international Adana theater Festival started just as the Orange Blossom Festival ended.

  The Theater Festival was honoring World Theater Day. Turkey's Sabancı Holding is the main sponsor of the event. Domestic and foreign theater troops staged 19 plays.

★ Another theater event took place in the Turkish capital Ankara.

  The Tarsus Municipality City Theater, hailing from the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, staged the play "Aesop" at the 14th Ankara ETHOS theater Festival.

  The author of the play is Brazilian theater critic Guilherme Figueiredo. The play tells the story of the sixth century BCE storyteller Aesop's struggle from slavery to freedom.

★ Veteran Turkish pop musician Selda Bağcan had a concert in Istanbul on March 22. Some of the audience came from the U.S. and many remote Turkish provinces, reports the daily Cumhuriyet reporter Emel Seçen.

  Her previous concert on March 8 for World Women's Day fetched 8000 people, and this concert at the Zorlu PSM was equally well-attended.

  The 73-year-old singer had to continue her concert sitting down, but her voice was still beautiful as usual.

★ On April 1, one of the oldest symphony orchestras in the world, Turkey's Presidential Symphony, premiered the Gül Baba Symphonic Poem.

  The Endowment for Protecting the Gül Baba mausoleum in Hungry had commissioned the work.

  Gül Baba was a leader of the Bektashi order. He went to Budapest in the 1500s during the conquest of Hungry by the Ottomans. He died there, and the Ottomans built a mausoleum for him. It is now a museum in the Buda district of the Hungarian capital.

  The Presidential Symphony Orchestra had two Hungarian musicians for the concert: renowned conductor Heja Domonkos led the orchestra, accompanying pianist Jozsef Balog.

★ A man plowing his farm in Turkey's central Çorum province discovered a rare 3,300-year-old ancient bracelet from the Hittite era, reports the Anatolia News Agency.

  The farmer, who lives in the Çitli village of Mecitözü district, found the bracelet while he was working on the farm and brought the ancient treasure to the Çorum Museum.

  Experts determined that the bracelet was from the ancient Hittite civilization and carried out restoration work.

  An ancient jeweler made the beautiful bracelet from bronze, nickel, silver, and gold. Depictions of Hittite symbols, including imagery of the Itar/Auka, his servants Ninatta and Kulitta adorn it.

  The archaeologists also noted that there are very few pieces of Hittite-era jewelry, and this piece shed light on the jewelry styles of the civilization.

  Çorum is home to the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, one of the most significant tourist destinations in Turkey.

  The Lion Gate is in the southwest part of the Hattusa ruins, which are now a giant open-air archaeological park and one of Turkey's most important tourist destinations.

  It serves as an open-air museum with four-mile-long city walls, monumental city gates, a 78-yard-long underground passage, the Hittites palace in Büyükkale, 31 unearthed temples, and ancient wheat silos.

  UNESCO added the site to its World Heritage List in 1986 due to its well-protected architectural structures and excavation site.

  It also has held UNESCO's title of "Memory of the World" since 2001, with its cuneiform scripts representing the oldest known form of Indo-European languages.

  Hattusa served as the capital of the Hittite Empire, one of the civilizations that played a prominent role in the development of urban life in the late Bronze Age. It was the first national excavation site in Turkey.

  Read more >> here <<

★ Aksaray is the gateway to Cappadocia with its historical and cultural riches. Historians know it as the first settlement of Turkey's Central Anatolia, and it has been enchanting visitors with its mummies.

  At the Aksaray Museum, there stands on display 13 mummies consisting of cats, babies, and adult humans from the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries unearthed in excavations in and around Aksaray.

  The museum is the only one in Turkey with a section for mummies.

  Aksaray Museum Director Yusuf Altın said:

  "Among these mummies, the baby mummy involves very technical work because the mummification technique in our country is different from that in Egypt.

  "In this technique, after the person died, they removed the internal organs of the corpse. They melted the wax and covered the corpse with a layer of glaze. Then they covered it with fabric and shroud.

  "It is buried in the ground this way, and the corpse remains preserved for centuries after it dries."

  Altın added that the ancients also preserved a cat loved by its owner with mummification.

  Read more >> here <<

★ In the ongoing excavations in the ancient city of Perre, located in Turkey's southeastern province of Adıyaman, archaeologists found a 1500-year-old bakery structure, reports the Anatolia News Agency.

  Since 2001, the excavations have been going on at intervals in the ancient city of Perre.

  Archaeologists unearthed a historical Roman fountain, large blocks of stones, water channels, and various architectural structures in this year's work.

  The latest discoveries by the archaeologists in the ancient city are winery areas and a bakery structure created to meet the needs of the people of that period, along with nails from the building.

  Noting that they found hundreds of nails in the bakery structure, Mehmet Alkan, the head of the local museum, said: "These nails were used both to make the door and as decoration."

  Archaeologists also unearthed a tandoor in the northeastern part of the bakery structure.

  Perre was one of the biggest cities of the Kingdom of Commagene. It was an important city in terms of religious and geopolitical aspects.

  Ancient Roman sources mentioned the beauty of the city's water.

  After the Byzantine period, the ancient city lost its importance and never regained its former glory.

  The rock tombs, the main attractions of Perre, were carved into the rocks. They have a wonderful appearance.

  Also, the large mosaics found in the city bear fascinating heart motifs, three-dimensional globe figures, and octagonal geometric modules that arouse interest.