President Emmanuel Macron warned against Turkish meddling in France's presidential elections next year and accused Ankara of spreading lies through state-controlled media, in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

Turkey fired the governor of its central bank and replaced him with economist and former ruling party lawmaker Sahap Kavcioglu, according to a presidential decree published late on Friday, in a move likely to raise concerns over the bank's independence.

Turkey has pulled out of the world's first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women by presidential decree, in the latest victory for conservatives in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party.

Turkish police on Friday detained several pro-Kurdish party officials and a human rights activist, as prosecutors increase the pressure on the country's third-largest party.

Turkey's pro-Kurdish party was fighting for its political survival on Wednesday after a prosecutor asked the country's top court to shut it down for alleged links to militants waging a deadly insurgency against the state.

Turkey plans to host an Afghan peace conference in Istanbul in April, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, ahead of a deadline for a US troop withdrawal.

Gulay Avsar is a regular at a market in Ankara's old town, where prices are more reasonable than most other places around the Turkish capital.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will convene an informal meeting in April involving Greece, Turkey and Britain to explore a possible end to deadlocked Cyprus peace talks, his spokesman said Wednesday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the United States of siding with "terrorists" after blaming outlawed Kurdish militants of executing 13 Turks in northern Iraq.
Erdogan's comments came a day after Ankara said Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels had killed 13 captives -- most of them Turkish soldiers and police officers -- they had allegedly abducted in southeast Turkey and kept in an Iraqi cave.

Turkey on Thursday rejected a US call to release jailed civil society leader Osman Kavala, accusing Washington of interference.
