Planned a month ago, Obama’s Turkey trip has created a big sensation in Turkey. Obama’s polite and graceful attitudes showed his endeavours to change the view of United States for Turkey. It was Obama’s first visit to a country as the president of the United States as he stated. Obama is welcomed excitedly by the Turkish folk comparing to the any other previous presidents of the US.

Obama’s plane Air Force I arrived to Ankara Esenboga Airport on April 5th, Sunday night, and he went to hotel that night. On April 6th, Obama’s trip started formally. First of all, he visited Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who is the founder of modern Turkey; therefore, he is appreciated because of this trip since he showed his regard to the modern, secular Turkey and its founder. He left a note to guess notebook of Anitkabir concluding with Ataturk’s famous quote: “Peace in the world, peace in the country.” After that, he visited Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey; furthermore, he went to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) to make a speech. This speech was the most important speech during his trip, and I watched it live.

Last week was the time to vote for the local elections in Turkey. Results are still being discussed while the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) reported the formal results. The results show that the oppositional parties increased their votes while the leading parties had less votes comparing to the preceding elections.

As it can be seen from the chart, the current leading party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), had 38,5% of the votes, whereas the oppositional parties got votes of following percentages:

Republican People’s Party (CHP): 23,2%
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP): 16%
Democratic Society Party (DTP): 5,7%
Felicity Party (SP): 5,2%
Democratic Party (DP): 3,8%

After I came to Turkey from the trip to Portugal, I saw that everyone was excited because of Obama’s planned trip to Turkey in April. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Turkey and talked with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In this meeting, Hillary Clinton explicated that Obama will be visiting Turkey in April. This statement of Clinton caused a general excitement in Turkey; everyone tried to guess the goal of Obama’s choice to visit our country. Turkish politicians said that it was because of the fact that Turkey is the most powerful country in its region and a predominantly Muslim and secular country. These seems to be logical reasons of Obama’s planned trip to Turkey. Apparently, Barack Obama will address to all Muslim countries from Turkey and try to establish peace between them and USA.

So, this choice of Obama can be seen as his first step to peace with Muslim countries and USA. In my opinion, Obama is the only leader to end the prejudices of both sides, Muslims and American people. Besides, everything about Obama’s peace establishing plans for Muslim countries will be clarified next month; I’m waiting curiously to see what will happen.

Yesterday, (Thursday, January 29th, 2008) French folk was on strike to protest the handling of economic crisis of the government. The strike began at 8 PM, Wednesday and is to end at 8 AM, Friday.

As a result of these strikes, transportation, education and health services in the country were disrupted for a day. Ministry of the Interior stated that a million of people demonstrated in “Black Thursday”, whereas the French unions reported the number of the people protested as 2.5 million. Even though demonstrations disrupted the life in some cities for a day, the attendance to the strikes were less than expected; consequently, authorities reported that it was more like “Gray Thursday” than “Black Thursday”.

In his second week of presidency, the 44th president of US, Barack Obama reached out to Muslim world. Barack Obama gave his first interview to a Dubai-based TV, Al-Arabiya. Moreover, his words clarified that he wanted to change America’s view to Muslims.

Obama said, “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. He continued, “We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.”

These interview of US’s new president made clear that their target are Islamic terrorist organizations, not innocent Muslims. By giving the first interview to an Arabic TV and using peaceful words way different from the previous presidents, Barack Obama really gives an undertaking of hope.