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Peter Kenyon

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Peter Kenyon is NPR's international correspondent based in Istanbul, Turkey, covering the Iran crisis and the business of Persian Gulf oil.

Prior to taking this assignment in 2010, Kenyon spent five years in Cairo covering Middle Eastern and North African countries from Syria to Morocco. He was part of NPR's team recognized with two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University awards for outstanding coverage of post-war Iraq.

From 2001 to 2005, Kenyon was based in Jerusalem and covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to regular stints in Iraq, he has followed stories to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco and other countries in the region.

Arriving at NPR in 1995, Kenyon spent six years in Washington, D.C., working in a variety of positions including as a correspondent covering the US Senate during President Bill Clinton's second term and the beginning of the President George W. Bush's administration.

Kenyon came to NPR from the Alaska Public Radio Network. He began his public radio career in the small fishing community of Petersburg, where he met his wife Nevette, a commercial fisherwoman.

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Sports
8:39 am
Fri February 15, 2013

Turks Desire 'Reversal' In Olympic Wrestling Move

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This week's news that the International Olympic Committee has decided to drop wrestling from the list of core Olympic sporting events has caused acute pain in Turkey. Wrestling is revered there as an ancestral sport.

In this letter from Istanbul, NPR's Peter Kenyon tells us that Turks plan to take the IOC decision to the mat.

PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The Turks don't claim either to have invented wrestling or to be the best in the world at it. They do love it though, and closely followed the matches at the London Games last year.

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Middle East
3:25 am
Tue February 5, 2013

In Syrian Conflict, Real-Time Evidence Of Violations

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Credit AFP / Getty Images
Syrians look for survivors amid the rubble of a building targeted by a missile in the al-Mashhad neighborhood of Aleppo on Jan. 7.
Credit Abdullah al-Yassin / AP
Syrian citizens bury those who were found dead next to a river last week, many of them with their hands bound behind their backs, in Aleppo, Syria, on Jan. 31.
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Originally published on Tue February 5, 2013 1:47 pm

There are growing calls for Syria's leaders to face war crimes charges for the fierce assaults against rebel targets and civilian areas. If that happens, veterans of past war crimes prosecutions say, Syrians will have one big advantage: The widespread gathering of evidence across the country is happening often in real time.

After visiting a Syrian refugee camp in southeastern Turkey recently, Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, reacted sharply to a question that suggested Washington, D.C., has kept quiet about the Syrian regime's attacks.

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Middle East
3:22 pm
Mon February 4, 2013

Iran's Leader Embraces Facebook, Fellow Iranians Are Blocked

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Credit Vahid Salemi / AP
Iranian authorities are using cyberpolice units to crack down on people who try to access banned websites, including social media sites such as Facebook. Here, Iranians use computers at an Internet cafe in Tehran in January.
Credit Behrouz Mehri / AFP/Getty Images
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shown here in 2009, recently set up a Facebook page, though the Iranian government bans ordinary Iranians from access to Facebook and other social media sites.
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Originally published on Tue February 5, 2013 10:29 am

When Iran's supreme leader got a Facebook page in December, Iranians sat up and blinked.

Some thought it was a fake, finding it hard to believe that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be using a technology that his own government blocks. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman skeptically wondered how many "likes" it would attract.

But some of Khamenei's supporters quickly rallied behind the move, which first came to light in a reference on — you guessed it — the ayatollah's Twitter account.

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Europe
3:23 am
Thu January 3, 2013

Prime Minister Finds Soap Opera's Turkish Delights In Bad Taste

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Credit Murad Sezer / Reuters via Landov
Eggs streak down a billboard advertising the popular Turkish soap opera The Magnificent Century. The show focuses on palace intrigue during the 16th-century rule of Suleiman the Magnificent. Some Islamists have protested the show's depiction of the sultan's harem.
Credit Murad Sezer / Reuters via Landov
Demonstrators attack a billboard advertising the TV series The Magnificent Century during a protest in Istanbul on Jan. 9, 2011.
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Originally published on Thu January 3, 2013 6:27 am

Suleiman the Magnificent was the longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire, presiding for nearly a half-century at the peak of the empire's power in the 16th century.

During Suleiman's rule from 1520 to 1566, the Ottomans were a political, economic and military powerhouse. Suleiman's forces sacked Belgrade, annexed much of Hungary and advanced across large parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

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Middle East
6:16 am
Sun December 9, 2012

In Istanbul, A Byzantine-Era Fleet Surfaces Again

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Originally published on Sun December 9, 2012 2:36 pm

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

In Istanbul, Turkey, construction on major public transit projects is underway after years of delay. The problem there wasn't lack of financing but the layer upon layer of ancient artifacts that tend to turn up every time the earthmovers get started. NPR's Peter Kenyon has the story of one dig along the city's southern shore. It's uncovered what experts say is a staggering array of artifacts from pre-Ottoman Constantinople.

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Middle East
3:40 pm
Fri November 30, 2012

In Istanbul, A Byzantine-Era Fleet Surfaces Again

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Credit Gokce Saracoglu for NPR
Archaeologists call an excavation site on Istanbul's southern shore the world's largest shipwreck collection. The area, unearthed during construction of a railway station, was once a Byzantine-era port that harbored cargo and military vessels, and received goods from around the Mediterranean.
Credit Mustafa Ozer / AFP/Getty Images
Archaeologists in Istanbul work on the remnants of a Byzantine-era ship in June 2006.
Credit Mustafa Ozer / AFP/Getty Images
The archaeological finds include millions of shards of pottery.
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Originally published on Mon December 3, 2012 8:24 pm

In Istanbul, major public transit projects are back under way after years of paralysis. The problem wasn't a lack of financing, but the layer upon layer of ancient artifacts that turned up every time the earthmovers started their work.

The excavation began eight years ago on projects intended to ease Istanbul's notoriously clogged traffic.

The job included building a tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait and linking it to a rail and subway network. When the dig was stopped several years ago, eyes rolled and shoulders shrugged.

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Middle East
7:33 am
Sun November 25, 2012

Bullet Dodged In Turkey, But Kurdish Conflict Lingers

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

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Middle East
7:22 am
Thu November 22, 2012

Israelis Ponder Likud Party's Shift To The Right

Credit Bernat Armangue / AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman shake hands in front of the media after giving a statement in Jerusalem last month. Netanyahu said his Likud Party will join forces with the hard-line party of his foreign minister in upcoming parliamentary elections.
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Originally published on Sun November 25, 2012 10:02 am

Some analysts have suggested that one impetus for the Israeli military strikes in Gaza is the upcoming election season in Israel. With elections set for January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed the political landscape last month by announcing that his Likud Party would run along with a right-wing party led by hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Likud Party leaders complained that they were left in the dark before the prime minister effectively vaulted Lieberman into the No. 2 political position.

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Middle East
5:24 am
Sat November 10, 2012

As Turkey Rises, 'A Real Problem' With Censorship

Credit Bulent Kilic / AFP/Getty Images
Kurdish women hold pictures of jailed journalists in Istanbul on Sept. 10, during the start of the trial of 44 journalists with suspected links to rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
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Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 2:25 pm

Nearly two years ago, Soner Yalcin and more than a dozen of his employees at the online news outlet OdaTV joined the growing list of incarcerated Turkish journalists. Yalcin, the owner of OdaTV, is one of the sharpest critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.

As their trial proceedings dragged on, challenges to the state's case grew, and most of the outlet's journalists were released, pending the trial's conclusion. But Yalcin and two others remain behind bars, 22 months and counting.

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It's All Politics
3:25 pm
Sat October 27, 2012

Among Israelis, Romney Appears The Favorite

Credit Charles Dharapak / AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney places a prayer note during a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem in July. Israel is one of the few foreign countries where residents have a clear preference for Romney over President Obama.
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Originally published on Sun October 28, 2012 9:51 am

Israelis view the American presidential election much the way they tend to view most issues: What does it mean for Israel?

And by a wide margin, Israelis seem to believe that Republican candidate Mitt Romney would be more attentive to Israel's interests than President Obama.

The Peace Index Poll, commissioned by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute, found that Romney was favored 2-to-1 by Israelis back in August.

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