Turkey

24 March 2022; MEMO: Turkey warned money lenders not to provide lira liquidity to companies looking to speculate in the offshore money market, Bloomberg reports.

According to the report, Turkish lira's offshore swap on Tuesday was becoming more difficult for foreign investors to hedge their exposure to lira assets. Due to offshore swap increase, Turkey's banking regülatör warned banks not to support investors trading liras offshore.

22 March 2022; MEMO: A full-fledged Burn Treatment Centre opened on Tuesday at a mega hospital in the Turkish metropolis, Istanbul, with its Chief of Medicine calling it Europe's largest, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Speaking at the Centre's opening ceremony at Basaksehir Cam and Sakura City Hospital, Dr. Nurettin Yiyit, said: "Today, we are opening this Centre to be the biggest in Europe."

"At the same time, we're also opening a Centre that is ideally prepared to treat burn patients from across the world," he added.

23 March 2022; MEMO: Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, yesterday announced that he had "constructive discussions" with his Saudi counterpart Faisal Bin Farhan on bilateral relations.

"Met with foreign minister Faisal Bin Farhan of Saudi Arabia," Cavusoglu said on Twitter, adding that they had agreed to "work together to further develop our bilateral relations."

22 March 2022; MEMO: Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said yesterday that Italy fully supports Turkey's mediation efforts to end the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, Anadolu has reported.

"Turkey is not only a NATO ally," Maio told journalists after an EU Foreign Ministers' meeting in Brussels, "but it is also an important country for the dialogue to bring the parties to a peace agreement at this stage." He added that had met his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu and discussed how the negotiations were going.

20 March 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's presidential spokesman stressed Saturday the necessity of facilitating a "strategic meeting" between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to reach a permanent cease-fire, Anadolu Agency reported.

Ibrahim Kalin told Al Jazeera news that Turkiye is trying to get "different views and channels together to bring an end to this war."

ISTANBUL, Mar 19 (NNN-ANADOLU) – Runway fashion shows have made a major comeback in Istanbul, Turkey’s cultural and financial hub, after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.

More than two dozen Turkish designers put new collections on show, at Fashion Week Istanbul yesterday, the closing day of the 4-day event, with this year’s edition featuring hybrid events of film screenings, runway shows, and collection presentations, under social-distancing measures.

18 March 2022; MEMO: President Tayyip Erdogan opened a massive suspension bridge across Turkey's Dardanelles Strait on Friday, the latest in a series of major infrastructure projects which he has prioritised during his two decades in power, Reuters reports.

18 March 2022; MEMO: The United Nations Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) will open a Mediation Centre office in Turkiye's metropolitan city of Istanbul this year, said the High Representative, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, which concluded last week, Miguel Angel Moratinos said that "We've been working hand in hand with the Turkish Government. They already told me personally that we can count on the full support of Turkiye to the Alliance's work."

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The president of Turkey, South Korea’s prime minister and other officials inaugurated a massive suspension bridge Friday over the Dardanelles Strait that connects the European and Asian shores of the key waterway.

With a a 2,023-meter (6,637 feet) span between its towers, the “1915 Canakkale Bridge” becomes the world’s longest suspension bridge, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

17 March 2022; MEMO: Doing scientific research as part of Turkiye's Sixth National Antarctic Science Expedition, Turkish researchers brought back data and findings, but strove to leave behind only their pristine footprints in the snow, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Antarctica, the world's fifth-largest continent with an area of 14.2 million square kilometres (5.5 million square miles), is one of the favourite spots of explorers and scientific research teams, with its intriguing geography and nature.