Tag: turkey

Unacceptable Says Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan After Joe Biden Calls Vladimir Putin a ‘Killer’

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Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday waded into the war of words between the US and Russian presidents, chastising Joe Biden for calling Vladimir Putin a “killer.” “Mr Biden’s comment about Putin does not suit a head of state,” the Turkish president told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul, lauding Putin for giving a “smart” and “classy response”.

In an interview with ABC News, Biden was asked if he thought Putin was “a killer”. “I do,” Biden replied, immediately sparking the biggest crisis between Russia and the United States in years.

Putin on Thursday mocked the US leader, saying a Russian phrase that translates roughly as “it takes one to know one”, and wishing Biden, 78, good health.

“I’m saying this without irony, not as a joke,” Putin, 68, said. Erdogan’s comments reflect a new spell of tensions that have entered Turkey’s relations with Washington since Biden replaced Donald Trump in the White House in January.

Erdogan is still waiting for a phone call from Biden, whose administration has highlighted Turkey’s deteriorating record on human rights. Turkish-US relations are also hampered by Ankara’s purchase of advanced S-400 air defence systems from Moscow, which Washington says threaten NATO defences.

Biden is also remembered in Ankara for calling Erdogan an “autocrat” in an interview in late 2019. Despite their differences on Syria, Erdogan has called Putin a “friend and a strategic partner.”

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Mars on Earth: Turkish lake may hold clues to ancient life on planet

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Scientists believe that the sediments around the lake eroded from large mounds that are formed with the help of microbes

As NASA’s rover Perseverance explores the surface of Mars, scientists hunting for signs of ancient life on the distant planet are using data gathered on a mission much closer to home at a lake in southwest Turkey.

NASA says the minerals and rock deposits at Salda are the nearest match on earth to those around the Jezero Crater where the spacecraft landed and which is believed to have once been flooded with water.

Information gathered from Lake Salda may help the scientists as they search for fossilised traces of microbial life preserved in sediment thought to have been deposited around the delta and the long-vanished lake it once fed.

“Salda…will serve as a powerful analogue in which we can learn and interrogate,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, told Reuters.

Professor Latif Kurt of Ankara University and Umit Turan from Turkish Environment Ministry inspect the shoreline of Salda Lake in Burdur province, Turkey, March 1, 2021.

Professor Latif Kurt of Ankara University and Umit Turan from Turkish Environment Ministry inspect the shoreline of Salda Lake in Burdur province, Turkey, March 1, 2021.  
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS

A team of American and Turkish planetary scientists carried out research in 2019 on the shorelines of the lake, known as Turkey’s Maldives because of its azure water and white shores.

Scientists believe that the sediments around the lake eroded from large mounds that are formed with the help of microbes and are known as microbialites.

The team behind the Perseverance rover, the most advanced astrobiology lab ever flown to another world, wants to find out whether there are microbialites in Jezero Crater.

 

They will also compare the beach sediments from Salda with carbonate minerals — formed from carbon dioxide and water, a key ingredient for life — detected on the margins of Jezero Crater.

“When we find something at Perseverance we can go back to look at Lake Salda to really look at both processes, (looking at) similarities but equally importantly differences that are really between Perseverance and Lake Salda,” Zurbuchen said. “So we are really glad we have that lake, just because I think it will be with us for a long time”.

Samples of rock drilled from Martian soil are to be stored on the surface for eventual retrieval and delivery to Earth by two future robotic missions, as early as 2031.

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