It is not often that international solutions work so well but when it happens, it deserves a tentative cheer.

Turkey, for all its woes, has a far more robust democratic system than Russia.

Kiwis attending Anzac Day memorials at Gallipoli will have to revert to old-school measures to get their photos, as selfie sticks are banned on Peninsula.

Nearly 250 people have been sent back from the Greek islands under the new accord.

Kiwis travelling to Gallipoli for Anzac Day services are being warned to avoid Turkey's biggest cities.

Five people died, including the bomber, and more than 30 were injured in the blast near a Government building in a busy shopping area of the city.

A suicide attacker detonated a bomb on Istanbul's main pedestrian shopping street on Saturday, killing five people, the city's governor said.

Police hunt suspected terrorists after deadly attacks at two locations.

WARNING - GRAPHIC FOOTAGE: Car bomb explodes in the heart of Turkey's capital, killing at least 34 people and wounding around 125 others.

Twenty-eight people have been killed and dozens wounded in Ankara after a car laden with explosives detonated near the armed forces' headquarters.

The Turkish government, in league with Saudi Arabia, made a tentative decision to enter the war on the ground in Syria, writes Gwynne Dyer.

Ceasefire means little as rebels hold various factions at bay and children typically become the victims.

Up to 70,000 Syrians are heading for Turkey, threatening to send a new wave of refugees into Europe as Syria's civil war intensifies.

Ewan McDonald sails (not cruises) on a yacht (not a ship) across the Mediterranean from Rome to points east and south.

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.

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.

An epic bloody battle in which almost 900 Kiwi soldiers died capturing a Turkish hill they would only hold for a few hours will be remembered 100 years on this weekend.

The Middle East continues its slide into chaos with Turkish warplanes joining the fray in Syria, further embroiling Nato's eastern rampart in that country's civil war.

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.