Turkey 2020: A year-end balance sheet
The global impact of the pandemic that put its mark on 2020 seems to last long. It seems that its effects will not pass easily. The traditional January meeting of World Economic Forum in...
Monthly Archive: December 2020
The lost year and Turkey
We started the year 2020 with great hopes but it turned out to be a lost year; a year with less love and less peace. The pandemic induced a general atmosphere of unhappiness and...
Kavala’s release would open blank page in Turkey-EU ties?
The Constitutional Court rejected Osman Kavala’s individual application for his release on the violation decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The court ruled on his arrest by one vote. On 30...
Turkish minimum wage melts in US dollars
The government has increased the minimum wage to 2825 Turkish Liras (roughly $379) for 2021. “We kept our promise that we will not let our workers bow to inflation,” said Family, Labor and Social...
If, when and how will foreign investors return?
It is difficult to make a meaningful assumption as to when foreign investors will again start to make strategic investments in Turkey. It is, however, less difficult to predict that foreign investors will not...
The S-400 case and sanctions: wherein lies sovereignty?
The US sanctions imposed on Turkey, due to the purchase of Russian made S-400s, by the US President Donald Trump days before he is to hand over the Presidency to Joe Biden is a...
Failure of an independent media attempt in Turkey: Olay TV
Olay TV was an independent media initiative with a goal to become mainstream under the current conditions of Turkey. It only lasted 26 days. It is easy to accuse Cavit Çağlar, who named the...
Babacan slams Erdoğan for making up ‘enemy of the week’
We have long forgotten how witty jokes spice up politics. First Meral Akşener, the head of İYİ Party, and then Ali Babacan, the chair of DEVA Party reminded us of that on the same...
Erdoğan’s rising temper on foreign issues in the pipeline
I was surprised when my source from security and foreign affairs of the state told me that “Things are rather monotonous nowadays,” upon my question on recent issues. This would be the last expression...
Social decay in Turkey and ‘The Masque of the Red Death’
In “The Masque of the Red Death,” one of the creepiest works of Edgar Alan Poe, the master of horror stories, a plague called “red death” takes over a country. The prince in the...