Threat to US and Foreign Nationals in Turkey

[farscott]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...=breaking-news

"The U.S Mission in Turkey has received credible reports of potential terrorist attacks and kidnappings against U.S citizens and foreign nationals in Istanbul, including against the U.S. Consulate General, as well as potentially other locations in Turkey."

It continued: "U.S citizens are advised to exercise heightened caution in locations where Americans or foreigners may gather, including large office buildings or shopping malls.

"All American Citizen and visa services at U.S Mission in Turkey's facilities (including U.S Embassy-Ankara, U.S Consulate General-Istanbul, U.S Consulate-Adana and the U.S Consular Agency-Izmir) will be temporarily suspended.

"Individuals with scheduled appointments will be notified by email with instructions on how to reschedule appointments."

I find it interesting that I need to look at foreign news web sites to learn about this.

[JDD]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...=breaking-news

I find it interesting that I need to look at foreign news web sites to learn about this.

You find it interesting that U.S. news sources are not covering it, or that the info is not more widely known?

If you have specific countries or areas that you are interested, the information available at Travel.State.gov is comprehensive. (it is also advisable to enroll in the STEP program at https://step.state.gov so that they can send alerts straight to you, and also contact you or next of kin during emergencies)

Here is an overview map if you are interested in a broader browse: https://travelmaps.state.gov/TSGMap/ Note that there are a significant number of advisories and alerts out there, which may explain why U.S. media does not cover them as often. In this case; I suspect the Mirror picked the story up because a significant number of folks in the UK vacation in Turkey - think of it as a cheap-ish warmer getaway.

If you really want to get into the weeds on these type of messages, they use a "no double standard" policy that basically can be summarized as: if there is threat information that is credible, specific, non-counterable, and widely applicable across the community - then they will publish an external message. The bottom line being the official U.S. community and the private U.S. citizen community in a country should not have diverging understandings of the security environment.

[BehindBlueI's]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...=breaking-news




I find it interesting that I need to look at foreign news web sites to learn about this.

Domestic news rarely covers travel restrictions. Probably due to a lack of interest given the relatively small percentage of viewers/readers who are likely to travel abroad to any given country. I ust check with the State Dept's website before traveling:

https://travel.state.gov/content/tra.../Turkey.html#/

https://tr.usembassy.gov/security-al...ion-in-turkey/

[farscott]

My organization uses the state.gov products as well as at least one third-party organization. The third-party organization information, in my experience, is useless as the product is just a summary of the state.gov statements. Travel now is not my concern as we are all grounded (all business travel is prohibited with any exceptions granted at the C-suite level) due to COVID-19. But there is a news value to a terror threat to US citizens and installations right now. Terror threats, in the weeks before a national election, are news as any attack on American interests can impact the election. And since terror attacks tend to increase in the near term the approval rating of a sitting POTUS, it seems there are elements of the media that would rather sit on that information.

BTW, CNN finally reported on it, almost an hour after I got the news alert.