Turkey's leaders are taking the country on a path towards totalitarianism, U.S.-based preacher and arch-enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Fethullah Gulen, wrote in an article published Tuesday.

Gulen, who rarely makes comments in public, accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of a clampdown on civil society in an opinion piece published in the New York Times.

Turkey's central bank, under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to aggressively lower rates, on Tuesday rejected the option of an unscheduled rate cut as inflation slowed less than expected.

Erdogan and his allies have over the last weeks lambasted central bank Governor Erdem Basci for failing to radically lower interest rates to stimulate faltering growth.

Turkish prosecutors on Monday formally charged a Dutch journalist with "terrorist propaganda" and called for her to be jailed for up to five years, local media reported.

Turkish authorities briefly detained Frederike Geerdink last month after raiding her home in the Kurdish-majority southeastern city of Diyarbakir. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday vowed to eradicate "cancer cells" in the judiciary, launching a new attack against the supporters of his rival, U.S.-based imam Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan accuses Gulen's powerful movement of being behind a sweeping corruption probe that rocked his government in December 2013 while he was prime minister.

Everything seems normal as the passengers stream out of a routine flight from a Middle Eastern country after landing at a major Turkish international airport.

But as they cross the air bridge from the plane into the airport, two plainclothes Turkish police -- on the lookout for jihadists on their way to Syria -- scrutinize their appearance and behavior.

Turkey is ready to "pay the price" if found guilty of the mass killings of Armenians a century ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

In a live interview with state-run TRT channel on Thursday, Erdogan said his country would take the necessary steps if historians conclude that it was at fault for the World War I-era massacres that Armenians say amounted to genocide.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan brushed off criticism that he's trying to amass sultan-like powers, saying he really just wants to be more like Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

Erdogan told state-run TRT channel on Thursday that his desire for an expanded presidential role would not undermine democracy -- and he pointed to the UK as an example. 

With their town liberated but largely destroyed by battles that drove Islamic State jihadists out, thousands of Syrian residents of Kobane are settling into Turkey's newest refugee camp for an indefinite stay.  

Opened on Sunday just several kilometres from the Syrian border, the new compound near the town of Suruc is the largest refugee camp yet in Turkey, and has begun taking in some of the estimated 200,000 people who fled Kobane after it came under IS attack in September.

Turkey's government has demanded that the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) lay down its arms on March 21, the Kurdish New Year, and relaunch peace talks to end three decades of conflict.

In what appeared to be the first direct appeal by a government official to the PKK, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan should call for a disarmament just as he did in the Kurdish New Year, or Newroz, in 2013. 

Iranian officials will meet with European members of the P5+1 group in Istanbul on Thursday under the ongoing diplomatic effort to secure a deal over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

The meeting with British, French and German diplomats was announced by Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham during a weekly press briefing in Tehran.