President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dismissed Central Bank Gov. Naci Ağbal, only four months after appointing him as part of a new economy administration that replaced the team of former Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, the president’s son-in-law. Şahap Kavcıoğlu, a former ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmaker and former deputy chair of
Both the U.S. and the European Union reacted to Turkey for the lawsuit that seeks closure of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and stripping Haluk Gergeroğlu from his lawmaker status on March 17. Turkish Foreign Ministry response to these reactions did not change: It said they were “intervention to Turkey’s domestic affairs.” However, a Reuters
When Chancellor Angela Merkel uttered her famous refugee crisis mantra in August 2015, “we can do this,” she probably did not imagine that this would cost her a sharp fall in her approval ratings while having the exact opposite effect on the anti-immigration party AfD.At that time, hundreds of thousands of refugees were crossing borders
Both the United States and the European Union have reacted to the revoking of the lawmaker status of a Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP) deputy and attempts to shut down the party. “We are monitoring the initiation of efforts to dissolve the Peoples’ Democratic Party, a decision that would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters,
Hours after the removal of one of its MPs, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu from the parliament on March 17, the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals filed a lawsuit for the closure of the Kurdish-problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). In the indictment he sent to the Constitutional Court, the Chief Prosecutor Bekir Şahin claimed
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu gave the first signal that Turkey-Egypt dialogue resumed, a major policy change, when he said March 3 that talks began on the Mediterranean maritime jurisdiction zones. Two days earlier, Egypt had granted licenses for oil and natural gas search companies in line with the maritime jurisdiction map that Turkey presented to
By the time you read this article, Turkey’s new envoy to Washington and Paris will have started their first week in their office.Ambassador Murat Mercan has certainly not been met by good news in Washington, as the last couple of days have seen negative developments taking place one after the other. One of them would
The ruling Justice end Party (AKP) will gather on March 24 its general assembly and party congress, a key event in terms of President Tayyip Erdoğan’s political future and its People’s Alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). According to political backstage information, Erdoğan and MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli have discussed scheduling the MHP congresses
The Economic Reform Package was announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 12. As an economist who specializes in monetary policy, I found the following statement rather struggling: “We will put the frequently mentioned price stability aside.” This remark can have opposite interpretations: 1) Frequent emphasis on price stability increased our awareness on the
The economic reform package announced by President Tayyip Erdoğan on March 12 compares to the Human Rights Action Plan he announced on March 2 in terms of failing to be convincing about introducing a structural change. If Erdoğan had named the plan he announced on March 2 an Administrative Reform in the Judiciary, it would