Friendship foiled Nov 29, 2008
By Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Kars, northeastern Turkey. High on a hill overlooking the city of Kars, there is a vast column of concrete obscured by wooden scaffolding ... Kars is in Turkey's far north-east, within sight of the Armenian border. (BBC News -- Europe)
Letter from Europe Sep 18, 2008
In late July, he made a symbolic visit to medieval Armenian church ruins in the Turkish province of Kars, on the border with Armenia. After repeated requests by Yerevan, the Turks have begun restoration works. (International Herald Tribune)
Briefing: Turkey's future Jul 18, 2008
A MARBLE fountain held up by bare-breasted maidens in the eastern city of Kars is a source of pride for the city s mayor, Naif Alibeyoglu. Yet last November the sculpture vanished a few days before a planned visit to Kars by Turkey s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (The Economist)
Photographs unravel Turkey's ethnic tapestry Mar 15, 2008
At a presentation in Kars, an eastern Turkish city, a man in his 50s wearing a suit spoke through tears about discovering that his family had been Molokan, Russian Old Believers. It was the first time he was speaking publicly about it, he said. (International Herald Tribune)
Between two worlds Dec 8, 2007
In his most overtly political novel, Snow (2002), set in the town of Kars on Turkey's north-east border with Georgia and Armenia in the 1990s, as civil war rages with secessionist Kurds, militant secularists stage a coup against rising political Islamists. Pamuk set himself the task of identifying with the "Islamists - the devil in Turkey's westernised media. It's taboo, but identifying with someone is not agreeing with them. At the heart of fiction lies a unique human talent to identify with... (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
New Trans-Caucasus Railway Project Gets the Go-Ahead Oct 13, 2007
Barely a decade ago, the city of Kars had to fight hard to ensure it was connected to a new improved railway line stretching east across Turkey from Ankara ... Given the go-ahead early this year by the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, after 15 years of hesitations, the $600 million Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line is expected to be completed by 2009 ... In late September, 14 Turkish companies including construction giants Nurol and Tekfen presented bids for the 70 kilometer section... (EurasiaNet.org)
PRESS DIGEST - Turkey - Oct 11 Oct 11, 2007
- From the western city of Edirne to the eastern city of Kars, Turkey condemns terrorism. - One policeman killed in hand grenade attack in southeast Turkey. (AlertNet)
Turkish Ruins Aug 13, 2007
Travelers must go through Kars, one of Turkey's least attractive towns, but the hardship is worth it. Ancient Ani was the Armenian capital and a stop along the Silk Road, comparable at its height to Baghdad or Constantinople. (Suite101.com)
Author's works capture Turkey's past, present Jun 9, 2007
He has returned to Turkey finally and travels to far-off Kars on the Russian-Turkish border near the Caucasus Mountains ... Kars is a tightly wound knot of tension between secular and religious forces, and Ka's investigations lead him into encounters with all the major players, including a terrorist, the leader of the head-scarf girls and a crowd of rioters ... And throughout, the snow falls evenly over Kars, covering the tumid, mean streets of the city, closing traffic in and out, while the... (Coos Bay-North Bend The World, OR)
Church Reopening in Turkey Does Little to Reassure Armenians Mar 31, 2007
Ko; earlier said that the Turkish government intends to restore eight mosques and eight Armenian churches in the vicinity of Kars, which was once the center of an ancient Armenian kingdom. But the statements so far have done little to reassure Armenians. (EurasiaNet.org)
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey: Building a Transportation Triumvirate? Feb 8, 2007
The Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway project, run by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, is strengthening a sense of regional cooperation in the South Caucasus ... "The length of the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railroad on Azerbaijan s territory is much longer than on Georgian territory, so Azerbaijan s railroad will make a greater profit on tariffs," he said ... An official in Azerbaijan s foreign ministry told EurasiaNet that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov tried to convince... (EurasiaNet.org)
