Türkiye's IYI Party Signals Withdrawal from Opposition Alliance

Meral Akşener, chairwoman of the IYI Party, speaks during an election rally in Istanbul, Türkiye, June 22, 2018. (Reuters)
Meral Akşener, chairwoman of the IYI Party, speaks during an election rally in Istanbul, Türkiye, June 22, 2018. (Reuters)
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Türkiye's IYI Party Signals Withdrawal from Opposition Alliance

Meral Akşener, chairwoman of the IYI Party, speaks during an election rally in Istanbul, Türkiye, June 22, 2018. (Reuters)
Meral Akşener, chairwoman of the IYI Party, speaks during an election rally in Istanbul, Türkiye, June 22, 2018. (Reuters)

Türkiye's nationalist IYI Party leader Meral Aksener said on Friday the six-party opposition alliance of which her party was a member no longer reflected the national will, signaling her party's withdrawal from the grouping ahead of May elections.

Aksener told a news conference that the IYI Party's proposed presidential candidates, the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, were not accepted by the other five parties and she called on the mayors to do their duty, in an apparent invitation for them to stand as candidates.

The other five parties in the alliance had agreed on Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), as their joint candidate to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the May 14 elections.



Iranian State TV Says Head of Iran's Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Killed by Israeli Attack

Iranian State TV Says Head of Iran's Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Killed by Israeli Attack
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Iranian State TV Says Head of Iran's Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Killed by Israeli Attack

Iranian State TV Says Head of Iran's Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Killed by Israeli Attack

Iran state TV said early on Friday that Israel has killed Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami in Israeli strikes.

It also reported the death of nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's attack on Iran would "continue for as many days as it takes" after Israel announced it had carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites.

"This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat," Netanyahu said in a video statement, naming the operation "Rising Lion".

"We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We targeted Iran's main enrichment facility at Natanz... We also struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile programme," he said, adding that Israel had also hit Iranian nuclear scientists "working on the Iranian bomb".