The number of foreign tourists in Turkey dropped in June by 40%, demonstrating the significant decline in the last six months. Losses are one of the most important economic sectors, writes.
The failed coup attempt two weeks ago even more scared of tourists. After all, June is the beginning of the peak tourist season on the Turkish Riviera. The country in recent months, was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks, responsibility for which is assumed as the jihadists of ISIL and the Kurdish rebels.
At the end of June in the terrorist attack at Istanbul airport killed 47 people.
The number of tourists from Russia, says the report of the Ministry of tourism of Turkey, fell in June to 93% in comparison with indicators of last year.
This is due, among other things, the deteriorated relations between Moscow and Ankara after the incident with the downed Russian bomber near Turkish-Syrian border.
The recent rapprochement between Russia and Turkey could partially rescue the summer season: July 9, for the first time since the crisis began in Antalya airport landed the plane with tourists from Russia.
Impact on the tourism industry of the coup attempt until the end is unclear. Photos of tanks in the streets of Ankara and Istanbul have spread all over the world. Since President Erdogan launched a ferocious campaign against its critics and declared a state of emergency for three months.
The precarious security situation in Turkey has already affected the business of the British tour operator such as Thomas Cook. If in may the company expected to profit to 355 million pounds, on Thursday, the tour operator has reduced its expectations to 300 million pounds.
Personnel rotation Putin – Neue Zuercher Zeitung
Yesterday morning, Russia’s political elite didn’t know what kind of bomb under it was put by President Putin. When a few hours later, the bomb exploded in the form of several presidential decrees, she’s really shaken up the political leadership of a large country.
During one of the biggest shuffles of recent years Vladimir Putin has changed the governors of the four regions, representatives of the five districts as well as the head of the Federal customs service.
The last step is much more important than it seems at first glance.
Andrei Belyaninov, a former KGB officer, was Director of the powerful Customs service since 2006. Once in his house with a search warrant came to the FSB, it became clear that he had lost the patronage of the Kremlin.
In the house Belianinov found a cardboard box full of money totaling around 900 thousand dollars, and expensive paintings.
Photos hit the media that has become possible only with the consent of the Kremlin.
Officially Belyaninov held as a witness in the case of corruption of one of the Petersburg businessmen involved in smuggling cognac. But in Russia the status of a witness can very quickly become a bad thing.
The newspaper “RBC” he suspects that the unusual activity is one of the ambitious leaders of the FSB General Sergei Korolev. And he’s lucky enough that his desire for activity, started for career growth intersect with the current interests of the Kremlin: in September, the country held elections to the state Duma, and the flaunting of the fight against corruption, including in the higher echelons of power, can convince voters to vote for the party of the Kremlin “United Russia”.
Moreover, in the overall picture fits to the dismissal of a non-partisan Governor of the Kirov region Nikita Belykh, now arrested on suspicion of corruption.
Even if most of the personnel decisions had been prepared in advance, but implemented just before the summer holidays, Putin has once again managed to create an image that he loves the most: the image of a decisive leader.
Why France suffers most from the attacks – The Financial Times
The combination of several factors helps to explain why France remains the favorite target of jihadists.
To begin with, the bombing of ISIS bases inevitably cause a reaction. This price is hard action that Hollande supported, but that did not dampen the terrorist attack on French territory.
In addition, there are the radicals of North African origin, who left France to Syria and Iraq and are reported to occupy high positions in the command of the Islamic state: talking about them that they keep in touch with soldiers returning to France from the Middle East to carry out attacks in Paris last year.
In addition, the planners of ISIS seem to see the opportunity to drive a wedge between those people in France who, like Hollande, refuses the most stringent security policies in the name of Republican values, and those who call to measures in the spirit of Israel.
There are economic consequences of the attacks for the status of France as a world leading tourist destination.
The gap between the France, which behaves as a beacon for the rest of the world, and the realities of life in the neighborhoods deepened. The result was the rejection of the Republic of young people who feel that at best she is indifferent to them, and at worst intensely hostile.
What is common in Russia and Turkey – Neue Zuercher Zeitung
After the incident with the downed Russian bomber in the Syrian-Turkish border between Putin and Erdogan ran a black cat. But, according to rumors, we will witness a formal reconciliation, which is not surprising, as both autocrats have in common similar anti-Western attitude.
The quarrel between Moscow and Ankara looked like doing, and despite the bellicose rhetoric against the background of the disorder on both sides, it was possible to foresee that ultimately the parties come to a compromise.
And so it happened: recently, Erdogan has not only expressed regret for the incident, but arrested the pilot, who shot down a Russian plane. Now, if you believe the data, Erdogan will meet with Putin in St. Petersburg on August 9.
Russia and Turkey have never been allies. In the period from 1686 to 1878 between the two countries 9 times flashed military conflicts – each time with a new set of European allies. While tsarist Russia managed to oust the Ottomans from Ukraine, from Crimea and the Caucasus. But during the Crimean war, both empires were close to collapse: Russia was referred to as a “colossus with feet of clay”, and a Turkey dubbed the “sick people at the Bosphorus”.
In the early twentieth century, both countries experienced a collapse – and if Ataturk formed the Turkish state in the European image and likeness, then Lenin built on the ruins of Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and his successor Stalin turned the country after the Second world war in the armed to the teeth superpower.
Today, both States follow a similar revisionist course. While Erdogan wants to move away from Kemalism in the direction of an Islamist state, Putin intends to consolidate as a zone of influence the former Soviet republics and put an end to their orientation to the West.
Their claim to the status of a world power Russia is implementing with the help of so-called hybrid war. However, Russia, like Turkey, can count on a “fifth column” abroad.
The similarity of Russia and Turkey goes far beyond an authoritarian system of government. As Turkey and Russia represent a police state, and their leaders are willing to sacrifice the well-being of citizens and their safety for the sake of retaining power and its geopolitical ambitions
Castration elites, periodically occurring sharp weakening of the open liberal layer of the intelligentsia have become traditional as Turkey and Russia.
The post-Soviet quasirotational and arbitrariness of the authorities doing the political culture of Russia, regardless of historical and religious differences, similar to Islamic.
An anti-Western Alliance between Turkey and Russia is, in fact, would be a logical continuation of the failed Europeanization of the two countries. However, Turkey is still a NATO member, and should happen something serious to Ankara turned away from the Alliance.
In addition, Putin and Erdogan agree on the future of the Assad regime. However, with the assistance of the military-political Union of the fledgling de facto dictatorship can take control of the Black sea and become a serious threat to Europe.
