The Turkish leader has two goals: to ensure the destruction of Assad's regime, and to prevent the creation of a new Kurdish state in Syria, writes Gwynne Dyer.

Bomber's downing has split two obstinate strongmen deeply involved in Syria's increasingly crowded civil war.

For days, Russian jets had been roaring along the Turkish border, bombing hills on the Syrian side in support of a regime attack on rebel forces.

Germany offered Turkey the prospect of faster progress on its hope of joining the European Union in exchange for badly needed help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe.

Yunus Emre Alagoz, whose younger brother Abdurrahman killed 33 people in a bomb massacre in July, was named by Turkish police in local media.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully says there are no reports of New Zealanders being caught up in a terrorist bombing in Turkey's capital

Two bomb blasts ripped through crowds at a rally of peace activists in the Turkish capital last night.

Turkish efforts to stop traffickers from sending large "ghost ships" crammed with migrants towards Italy has sparked the surge in arrivals in Greece, the International Organisation for Migration says.

A battlefield centenary service has been held on a hill where nearly 850 New Zealanders were killed in two days of intense fighting during the Gallipoli campaign.

Turkey has waded into Syria's four-year civil war, using fighter jets to bomb Islamic State (Isis) fighters across the border for the first time.

A suspected female Isis suicide bomber set off an explosion near a cultural centre hosting youth activists in a Turkish border town, leaving 30 dead and scores injured.

The Turkish woman was as wizened and brown as a date. The date smiled out at me from a magenta headscarf.

A 10-month-old baby girl was rescued off the coast of Turkey today after her flotation device was swept a half mile out to sea.

Counter-terrorism teams launched raids in three Turkish cities yesterday, seizing firearms and arresting suspected Isis militants.

On the western fringe of Ankara, gouged into some 50ha of forest bequeathed to the Turkish republic by the nation's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, an extravagant presidential compound rises up.

Turkish voters delivered a dramatic blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice Development Party as results yesterday showed it losing its majority in Parliament.

There's a lot to see and comprehend in Turkey. Mike Osborne draws up a shortlist of seductive attractions.

The Prince of Wales and Prince Harry have met relatives of veterans of the Gallipoli Campaign who 100 years ago were on the eve of history.

A tour of Gallipoli's battlefields has left Prime Minister John Key sad, sobered and immensely proud.

If a New Zealand commander had told his troops at Gallipoli, ‘I am not ordering you to fight, I am ordering you to die’, it’s unlikely that he’d be remembered by towering statues or commemorative coins.

Nicola Lamb will never forget a special lunch with the locals at a small Turkish Village.

Canakkale, a bustling, tourist-student town the size of Dunedin, has already filled up with New Zealand and Australian officials, dignitaries, and local visitors for Anzac Day.

On a sombre drive in Turkey, Wynne Gray shakes his head at the futility of the deaths of so, so many young men in a foreign land.

My great-great-uncle Francis Woodhouse was just 17 when he enlisted to go to war. I bet if he had the luxury of regrets, that would have been his biggest, writes Anna Leask.

Australia has sent special forces and intelligence agents to Turkey as part of security measures for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli.

Kiwis attending the Gallipoli centenary should be prepared for a long and arduous day before the official commemorations kick off.

Three teenagers have returned to UK after being detained in Turkey suspected of travelling to join Isis

Tanks, drones and planes joined hundreds of Turkish soldiers in a night raid into Isis-occupied Syria to evacuate the tomb of a revered Ottoman figure.