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Istanbul: On the buzzing Taksim Square of Istanbul, the focal point of the modern city, a giant disused building looms over visitors, its glass windows broken and a few tattered advertising banners flapping disconsolately in the breeze.

This is the Ataturk Cultural Centre (AKM), opened in 1969 to realise the dream of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for the country to be a world-class centre for the arts, including Western genres such as classical music, opera and ballet.

It had to be rebuilt following a fire in 1970 and only reopened in 1978. It then served as the hub of Istanbul's cultural life for three decades before being shuttered in 2008 for restoration.

But no restoration ever took place and the building has since stood unloved and decaying through the tumult of the 2013 mass protests against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then premier, on Taksim and the July 15, 2016 failed coup against his rule.

Its brooding shell has become a symbol of the troubles dogging the arts in Turkey at a time of declining funding, claims of censorship under Erdogan and the terror attacks of 2016, keeping some foreign artists away.

'Knock it down'

After years of debate on the future of the building, Erdogan this month offered a radical and clinical solution -- rip the entire edifice down and build a world-class opera house in its place.

His proposal has aroused excitement in some quarters but hostility from others -- particularly those who see the modernist building as a worthy example of secular Turkish modern architecture.

"The AKM project in Istanbul is over, we will knock it down and Istanbul will gain a beautiful new edifice," Erdogan said.

Erdogan's government has been criticised on occasion for showing a lack of interest in the arts beyond Turkey's internationally successful television dramas.

But the president said: "All we want is for Istanbul to have the culture and arts centre that it deserves."

'Opera without a home'

The absence of the AKM left a gaping hole in Istanbul cultural life, with the opera and ballet companies largely performing at the Sureyya Operasi on the Asian side of the city, an architecturally significant 1920s building but too small for grand shows.

"We have been waiting for a proper concert hall and the news coming from President Erdogan made us more than happy," Yesim Gurer Oymak, director of the annual Istanbul Music Festival, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), said.

"This means that there will be more and more international orchestras and big productions coming to Istanbul and the companies from Turkey can present more elevated productions.

"The closure of AKM means an opera company, a ballet, a state orchestra without a home. In order to develop, they need to have a base and a home," she added.

Gurer Oymak recalled how the AKM had been a popular Istanbul meeting place and put on ambitious productions, including as part of the Istanbul Music Festival, that now are no longer possible.

A poster carrying a picture of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is seen on a construction site ahead of the constitutional referendum in the Aegean port city of Izmir in Turkey. (Photo: Reuters/Osman Orsal)

Symbol of 'old Turkey'?

Should a new opera house be built, Istanbul would be following other cities in the Islamic world, notably Dubai and Muscat, which have built new auditoriums that have been massively popular with locals and visitors.

It would also be a huge boost to Taksim Square, whose attractions have diminished especially since the 2013 protests and is now given a wide berth by many local residents.

The 1960s AKM, a brutalist edifice typical of its era, is regarded with scorn by some, who see it as an unwanted symbol of the "old Turkey" before Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002.

The pro-government Daily Sabah described the AKM as a "grim reminder" of the 1960s as well as an "eyesore and dull architectural work".

'Destroy the Republic'

But for others the building is a proud symbol of the modern Republic set up by Ataturk -- himself an opera buff -- and must be restored rather than demolished.

Sami Yilmazturk, chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects, said the plan to demolish the AKM was "part of a project to say 'stop' to modernisation and destroy the Republic."

"The (Republic) project put a dream, a utopia, an objective before Turkey. The plan to demolish AKM is an attempt to reverse that goal," he said.

He claimed that edifices linked with Ataturk were being knocked down under the current government, which insists it does its utmost to preserve Ataturk's legacy.

"It's an area where people meet, with art and culture," he added.

'Part of city identity'

Under the shadow of the building's shell, locals were divided over what its fate should be.

"This building represents Taksim. They are ruining the silhouette of Taksim Square. I don't believe better things will be done. We've seen what's been done so far," said Hacer, a middle-aged woman, who declined to give her full name.

But a man identifying himself only as Mustafa added: "It's an ugly building. I don't know what they will do with it but at least they could do something nice."

Gurer Oymak said one solution could be to preserve just the facade of the building while creating other parts from scratch.

"The AKM left a very important trace in the identity of this city. I would like to see the facade preserved as it's in our memory."

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Erdogan's Istanbul Opera House Plan Sparks Excitement, Controversy - News18

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

President of Turkey

Recep Tayyip Erdoan, (born February 26, 1954, Rize, Turkey), Turkish politician, who served as prime minister (200314) and president (2014 ) of Turkey.

In high school Erdoan became known as a fiery orator in the cause of political Islam. He later played on a professional football (soccer) team and attended Marmara University. During this time he met Necmettin Erbakan, a veteran Islamist politician, and Erdoan became active in parties led by Erbakan, despite a ban in Turkey on religiously based political parties. In 1994 Erdoan was elected mayor of Istanbul on the ticket of the Welfare Party. The election of the first-ever Islamist to the mayoralty shook the secularist establishment, but Erdoan proved to be a competent and canny manager. He yielded to protests against the building of a mosque in the citys central square but banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in city-owned cafs. In 1998 he was convicted for inciting religious hatred after reciting a poem that compared mosques to barracks, minarets to bayonets, and the faithful to an army. Sentenced to 10 months in prison, Erdoan resigned as mayor.

After serving four months of his sentence, Erdoan was released from prison in 1999, and he reentered politics. When Erbakans Virtue Party was banned in 2001, Erdoan broke with Erbakan and helped form the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi; AKP). His party won the parliamentary elections in 2002, but Erdoan was legally barred from serving in parliament or as prime minister because of his 1998 conviction. A constitutional amendment in December 2002, however, effectively removed Erdoans disqualification. On March 9, 2003, he won a by-election and days later was asked by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to form a new government. Erdoan took office on May 14, 2003.

As prime minister, Erdoan toured the United States and Europe in order to dispel any fears that he held anti-Western biases and to advance Turkeys bid to join the European Union. Although the previous government had refused to allow U.S. troops to be stationed in Turkey during the Iraq War, in October 2003 Erdoan secured approval for the dispatch of Turkish troops to help keep the peace in Iraq; Iraqi opposition to the plan, however, prevented such a deployment. In 2004 he sought to resolve the issue of Cyprus, which had been partitioned into Greek and Turkish sectors since a 1974 civil war. Erdoan supported a United Nations plan for the reunification of the island; in April 2004, Turkish Cypriots approved the referendum, but their Greek counterparts rejected it. Tensions between Turkeys secularist parties and Erdoans AKP were highlighted in 2007, when attempts to elect an AKP candidate with Islamist roots to the countrys presidency were blocked in parliament by an opposition boycott. Erdoan called for early parliamentary elections, and his party won a decisive victory at the polls in July.

In early 2008 parliament passed an amendment that lifted a ban on the wearing of head scarvesa sign of religion long contested in Turkeyon university campuses. Opponents of the AKP renewed their charges that the party posed a threat to Turkish secular order, and Erdoans position appeared to come under increasing threat. In March the constitutional court voted to hear a case that called for the dismantling of the AKP and banning Erdoan and dozens of other party members from political life for five years. Erdoan successfully maintained his position, however, when in July 2008 the court ruled narrowly against the partys closure and sharply reduced its state funding instead. In September 2010 a package of constitutional amendments championed by Erdoan was approved by a national referendum. The package included measures to make the military more accountable to civilian courts and to increase the legislatures power to appoint judges.

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While campaigning for parliamentary elections in early 2011, Erdoan pledged to replace Turkeys constitution with a new one that would strengthen democratic freedoms. In June 2011 Erdoan secured a third term as prime minister when the AKP won by a wide margin in parliamentary elections. However, the AKP fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally write a new constitution.

In the summer of 2013 Erdoan faced an outpouring of public discontent after Istanbul police violently broke up a small protest against the planned conversion of a public park into a shopping complex. The incident triggered larger demonstrations around the country decrying what protesters described as the growing authoritarianism of Erdoan and the AKP. Erdoan responded defiantly, dismissing the protesters as thugs and vandals.

Barred by AKP rules from seeking a fourth term as prime minister, Erdoan instead ran for the largely ceremonial role of president in 2014. In accordance with the constitutional amendments of 2007, the 2014 election was the first time that the president was elected directly, rather than by the parliament. Erdoan won easily in the first round of voting and was inaugurated on August 28, 2014. Immediately upon taking office, Erdoan began to call for a new constitution following parliamentary elections in 2015; it was widely believed that he would seek to expand the powers of the presidency. In June 2015 the AKP failed to win a parliamentary majority for the first time since its formation, receiving just 41 percent of the vote. The result was generally seen as a blow to Erdoans plans for an expanded presidency, but the reversal proved to be a brief one: in November 2015 the AKP easily won back its parliamentary majority in a snap election triggered by the failure of negotiations to form a governing coalition after the June election.

...In Indonesia the Prosperous Justice Party took part in legislative elections in 2004. Turkey allowed Islamists not only to participate in elections but also to govern at the national level. In 2002 Recep Tayyip Erdoan, chairman of the Party of Justice and Development, which won a majority of seats in that years general elections, formed a pragmatic Islamist government that cultivated...

...(Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi; AKP), a party with Islamist roots, swept the parliamentary elections. It came to power under the ostensible leadership of Abdullah Gl, since party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoan was ineligible to serve in parliament or as prime minister because of a 1998 conviction; a constitutional amendment in late 2002 removed this ineligibility. Erdoan...

In August a group led by Abdullah Gl and Recep Tayyip Erdoan (a former mayor of Istanbul [199498]) struck out to form the AKPor AK Party, ak in Turkish also meaning white or cleanas a democratic, conservative, nonconfessional movement. Unlike its predecessors, the AKP did not centre its image...

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan | president of Turkey | Britannica.com

President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showered each other with praise after a series of meetings at the White House Tuesday, but they made little progress to deal with their sharp differences on issues like terrorism and Syria.

According to a readout provided by the White House Tuesday night, the leaders discussed "how to further strengthen the deep and diverse relationship between our two countries. President Trump reiterated the commitment of the United States to the security of our NATO ally Turkey and the need to work together to confront terrorism in all its forms."

They promised renewed economic ties and lionized each others militaries for their efforts against ISIS. But underneath the talk of a new era, a deep fissure remains over the Trump administrations decision to directly arm a Kurdish rebel group in Syria that Turkey labels a terrorist organization.

Seen as the most effective group in the fight against ISIS, the YPG is part of the broader Syrian Democratic Forces, a multi-ethnic force that is backed by the U.S. and its coalition. The Pentagon is now selling the YPG weapons like heavy machine guns, mortars and armored vehicles as it advances on ISIS self-declared capital of Raqqa.

Erdogan again raised his countrys vehement opposition.

We are committed to fighting all forms of terrorism, without any discrimination whatsoever, that impose a clear and a present threat upon our future, he said next to Trump, a clear reference to not just ISIS, but Kurdish revolutionary groups like the YPG and its political wing PYD, as well as the PKK in Turkey. The U.S. and the European Union agree with Turkey that the PKK is a terrorist organization.

Taking YPG and PYD into consideration in the region will never be accepted, and it is going to be against a global agreement that we have reached, he warned.

While Trump explicitly called out the PKK and promised they would have no safe quarter, there has been no indication from the White House that the U.S. will withdraw support for the YPG.

Papering over the tension, the two men instead offered effusive praise for each other and the U.S.-Turkish relationship. Erdogan congratulated Trump for his legendary triumph in the November presidential election, called him his dear friend, and welcomed a historical turn of the tide after their meeting.

President Trump's recent election victory has led to the awakening of a new set of aspirations and expectations and hopes in our region, he said. I hope and pray that both of us will be committed to extending further our cooperation in the future, along with consulting each other more frequently.

The Oval Office meeting was an honor returned to Erdogan, who was not given such a welcome in the later years of the Obama administration. After once praising him as a reformer, Obama began to sour on the prime minister turned president after he began consolidating power, cracking down on public protests, and jailing any political opposition and journalists.

Trump, for his part, made no mention of those issues, instead reminiscing about the history of American-Turkish alliance and thanking Erdogan for his visit. Trump was one of the few world leaders to call Erdogan and congratulate him last month after he tightened his reigns even further in a national referendum. Observers and critics said the vote was rife with irregularities and threatened democracy in Turkey by weakening parliament and eliminating the prime minister position.

I look forward to working together with President Erdogan on achieving peace and security in the Middle East, on confronting the shared threats, and on working toward a future of dignity and safety for all of our people, he said.

Lingering behind all this is another source of tension that Trump didnt even mention: The case of Fethullah Gulen. The Turkish cleric and political figure is in exile in Pennsylvania, and Erdogan blames him for a failed military coup last summer and a host of other domestic problems. The Turkish government wants him extradited to face charges in Turkey -- and Erdogan brought it up again.

I have been very frankly communicating our expectations with regard to the centralized terrorist organization, he said, bashing Gulens followers, known as the Gulenist movement.

The Trump team was once reportedly considering kidnapping Gulen and sending him back, but it is not clear what their policy is now.

Trump also raised the issue of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor that the U.S. has been pressing to be released. The White House readout said the president discussed "the incarceration of Pastor Andrew Brunson and asked that the Turkish Government expeditiously return him to the United States."

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Despite sharp differences, Trump and Erdogan clasp hands ...

ISTANBUL/ANKARA Turkey sent its first ship carrying food aid to Qatar and dispatched a small contingent of soldiers and armored vehicles there on Thursday, while President Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Saudi Arabia's leaders on calming tension in the region.

Turkey has backed Qatar after Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states cut all economic and diplomatic ties this month, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, a charge it denies.

But Ankara, which has long tried to play the role of regional mediator, is also wary of upsetting its other allies, including Saudi Arabia. Turkey fast-tracked legislation on June 7 to allow more troops to be deployed to a military base in Qatar that houses Turkish soldiers under an agreement signed in 2014.

Five armored vehicles and 23 military personnel arrived in Doha on Thursday as part of the new deployment plans, Turkey's armed forces said in a statement, adding that the move was in the framework of legal measures regarding military training and cooperation between the two countries.

Some 88 Turkish soldiers were already in Qatar, according to the Hurriyet newspaper.

After the deployment, a joint exercise by Turkish and Qatari forces was expected following the Islamic Eid al-Fitr holiday, Hurriyet said. The number of Turkish soldiers sent to the Gulf state could eventually reach 1,000, it said, adding that an air force contingent was also envisaged.

The first Turkish ship carrying some 4,000 tonnes of dry food supplies, fruit and vegetables set off from a port in western Turkey's Izmir province at dawn on Thursday, state-run Anadolu news agency said. It cited the head of the logistics company delivering the supplies as saying it was expected to arrive in Doha in around 10 days.

Though Turkey has sent 105 cargo planes of supplies, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said on Wednesday that it was not sustainable to maintain aid supplies through an air lift.

REGIONAL TIES

In supporting Qatar, Turkey was not trying to threaten anyone, Erdogan's spokesman said.

"We don't want any sort of tension with any Gulf state. We would also not want any of them to be in a row with each other. This has been our approach to this crisis since the beginning," Ibrahim Kalin told reporters on Thursday.

"In other words, if two of your friends, two neighbors are disagreeing with each other and if there is something you can do about this, it is perfectly natural to go into action."

Sources from Erdogan's office said the president spoke by phone overnight with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and new crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, congratulating the latter on his promotion.

"Agreement was reached on increasing efforts toward ending tension in the region related to Qatar," the sources said in a statement regarding the phone calls on Thursday. Erdogan and King Salman agreed to hold face-to-face talks at the G20 meeting in Hamburg next month, the sources said.

King Salman made his son next in line to the throne on Wednesday, handing the 31-year-old sweeping powers as the kingdom seeks a radical overhaul of its oil-dependent economy and faces mounting tensions with regional rival Iran.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Richard Balmforth)

MARAWI CITY, Philippines Fighting between government forces and Islamist rebels holed up in the heart of a southern Philippine town eased on Sunday as the military sought to enforce a temporary truce to mark the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

LONDON Britain said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes.

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Turkey sends Qatar food and soldiers, discusses Gulf tensions with Saudi - Reuters

Editor's note: This story contains homophobic language some readers might find offensive. The non-binary pronouns "they" and "them" have been used in the singular form to refer to individuals who do not identify as a specific gender. "LGBTI+" refers collectively to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex or another sexual minority.

Ankara, Turkey (CNN) -- It was a warm summer night in July 2015 and Kemal Ordek, a sex worker at the time, was waiting at home for the next client to arrive.

Two men, posing as customers, entered Ordek's apartment in Ankara. They beat Ordek -- whose gender is non-binary-- stole their phone and one raped them. At one point a third man, a relative of the other two, entered the apartment and demanded money.

The men dragged Ordek, 32, out into the street and towards a nearby cash machine. There, Ordek spotted a police car and ran to tell the officers what had happened. The attackers followed, telling the police they were "family men" who had been lured into Ordek's home. They denied doing anything wrong.

Ordek's version of events was dismissed by police on the spot, Ordek says. The officers threw Ordek and the men into their patrol car and drove to the police station. "Don't even dare make a criminal complaint. I'll chop off your head, we'll kill you," one attacker said, according to Ordek.

Later that night, police released Ordek's attackers without explanation. Ankara police declined to comment by phone or text message, asking that CNN send its request by handwritten letter.

According to Ordek's attorney, it was only after they filed a civil complaint, and sought legal representation that police launched a criminal investigation.

For the next year, Ordek says the attackers unleashed a campaign of intimidation against them. Ordek also claims that pressure was applied by police to drop the complaint.

Police arrested the attackers last November. They were ultimately convicted for their crimes and sentenced to seven and a half years each for looting. One of the attackers had faced 20 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault but his lawyer was able to get that charge dropped upon appeal.

While the case gained support from human rights organizations and attention from the national media, Ordek's family disowned them.

"My father told me, 'you better get killed instead of being raped because this is against our honor,'" Ordek said.

Although homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since 1923, Turkey has one of the worst records of human rights violations against LGBTI+ people in Europe, according to a 2016 report from the European Region of the International LGBTI Association. A separate 2016 report to the United Nations by Turkish LGBTI+ advocacy groups identified at least 41 hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people that resulted in death from 2010 to June 2014.

Ordek survived the brutal attack, but many others haven't.

In 2009, Eda Yildirim, a transgender sex worker was decapitated and burned alive; her breast implants cut out of her before she was murdered. In 2015, another transgender sex worker died after being stabbed 200 times by a client. In 2016, a young transgender woman named Hande Kader, a prominent member of the LGBTI+ community, was raped and burned alive. Her killer has not been found. Even when identified, many of the murder suspects have not been prosecuted.

Mustafa Yeneroglu, the Chief of Turkey's Parliament's Human Rights Observation Commission, told CNN that he had personally researched some of these incidents, but described them as "mostly individual cases" that didn't point to abuse of the LGBTI+ community.

Highlighting that the victims were sex workers, Yeneroglu said: "It should be researched sociologically and psychologically why these people are found in a criminal situation ... like (roadside) prostitution."

But Ordek -- the director of the Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association, an NGO promoting health and rights for sex workers in Turkey -- says that according to their research, roughly 90% of the country's transgender people feel sex work is the only way they can make a living.

Betul, a transgender woman who asked CNN to refer to her only by her first name for her safety, spent nearly ten years of her life trying to work a "regular job" after graduating from university but was repeatedly sexually assaulted.

Eventually Betul turned to sex work, but faced more violence than before. Last year, an organized crime gang attacked Betul in her home, nearly severing her hand from her wrist.

Before Erdogan became Prime Minister in 2003, he garnered support by giving a voice to minority groups, including the LGBTI+ community, declaring in 2002, "homosexuals must also be given legal protection for their rights and freedoms." But two years later, Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) removed the phrase "sexual orientation" from a draft law, describing it as "unnecessary."

As Erdogan tightened his grip on power in the intervening years, activists say he and his government became more conservative, more Islamist and more homophobic.

In 2010, then former state minister for family affairs, Selma Aliye Kavaf told Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, "homosexuality is a biological disorder, a disease ... something that needs to be treated."

In 2013, Erdogan described homosexuality as a "sexual preference" that was incompatible with the "culture of Islam" in Turkey.

On a quiet lane in central Ankara, Ordek sat with peers who had gathered to discuss their future in post-referendum Turkey.

A lawyer, who asked for her identity to be concealed for her security, told CNN that Erdogan used the referendum campaign to usher in a new wave of homophobic hate speech, and said the President is fostering a culture of police hostility whipped up by his extreme rhetoric. Erdogan's press office did not respond to CNN's repeated requests for comment.

Hostility to the LGBTI+ community has also seeped into Turkey's pro-government news organizations. In the wake of the terror attack in Orlando in 2016, when 49 people were gunned down at a nightclub, popular among gay men, the headline in the far-right Yeni Akit paper read: "50 perverts killed in bar."

"If a family member decides to...kill you, they can because the government doesn't effectively investigate," she said. "They turn their backs to these 'honor killings.'"

Yeneroglu, the head of the Parliament's human rights commission, told CNN that the commission will be meeting with LGBTI+ organizations to follow up on their concerns, but he did not specify when.

Serkan, a gay 28-year-old PhD student from Istanbul who asked CNN not to publish his last name out of concerns for his safety, said his university has also become more intolerant as Erdogan has tightened his grip on power.

Serkan and his university's gender studies department is "almost non-existent." He says most of the academics in the department were fired following Turkey's post-coup crackdown, which has seen more than 110,000 people detained and almost 50,000 of them arrested.

"Since the purge started, the government's perspective on social science departments, specifically in gender studies, has changed," he told CNN. "It was a hostile change."

This atmosphere of fear permeates all levels of society, according to Tolga, a 21-year-old office worker who came out as gay only four years ago. He asked for his last name to be withheld out of concerns for his safety.

As he lists a number of political upheavals -- from the 2016 failed coup to a bloody fight against the resurgence of a Kurdish separatist movement in the south -- Tolga fears that the LGBTI+ community is increasingly becoming a scapegoat as President Erdogan seeks to consolidate power and eliminate all dissenting voices.

"When I go to sleep at night, I'm always worried about what will happen the next day," he said.

"Especially under the state of emergency [which was imposed in July 2016], everyone is feeling particularly concerned in their daily lives. I have started coming to work from a street that is safer than my usual route," Tolga told CNN.

Tolga fears that his way of life is being forced underground as Turkey's gay people lose public spaces where they can safely congregate. He cites the terrorist attack on a prestigious gay-friendly nightclub in Istanbul on New Year's Eve, and the state-ban on Ankara and Istanbul gay pride events last year.

"I fear I'm going to have to live a life where I meet with my friends in houses and in private -- I fear that socializing outside will stop," he said.

He also worries that Erdogan is pitting what many LGBTI+ people see his increasingly Islamist conservatism against the country's traditionally secular, urban society. "The political situation changes in the country very rapidly, so I don't know what it's going to be like the next day," he said.

"I fear for civil war in this country."

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