Journalist-Writer
Do not expect an outcome from the Cyprus talks that started yesterday. At least do not hope for an outcome that the European Union dreams of. That train was missed when the Greek Cypriot community said “no” to the “reunification” plan presented by the then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a referendum on 24 April, 2004.
Let’s be realistic. The Turkey-U.S. relations can not go the way they used to do after so much damage. Going back is out of question. It is not just because U.S. President Joe Biden named the 1915 killings of Armenians “genocide”. It is not just because that the issue came forward because the Biden administration
U.S. President Joe Biden declared that his country recognizes April 24 as the day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide. Thus, he has become the second U.S. President to call the 1915 Armenian deportation and the massacres that followed the “Armenian genocide”. Earlier in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan had called the 1915 deportation the
I congratulate April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day “against all odds.”I say odds because President Tayyip Erdoğan did not use the surname of Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the first president of the country, in his message celebrating the “biggest day of the nation.” (Atatürk translates as “Father of Turks). I do
The last strike that led President Tayyip Erdoğan to fire Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan with a late-night decree in the early hours of April 21 should be her acceptance of selling disinfection goods to the ministry by her husband’s company on the grounds of “below market price.” Pekcan was not a prominent minister in the
The lawyers of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş held an online press conference on April 18 over the “Kobani incidents case” that will start to be heard in Ankara on April 26. In the case to be held in Ankara’s 22nd High Criminal Court, 108 defendants will be tried together with Demirtaş
The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) chair Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu posted a Twitter message on April 15 in a rare opposition to a government decision despite his support for the government.“Problems of our companies have increased due to the pandemic. First of all, Shorter Employment Allowance needs to be restored,” said the
The Ankara contacts of the Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on April 15 ended in a scandalous way. When Dendias brought up heavy accusations against Turkey during a joint press conference, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu clapped back and we witnessed a duel of words live. Watching the video of this press conference would help
The debate that was launched after 104 retired admirals made a statement for the stay of the 1936 Montereux Convention on sovereign rights of the straits, has faded with the release of 10 detained former military men. Had Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning to President Tayyip Erdoğan “not to violate Montreux” any part in this?
Ankara was happy with a good meeting with Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibeh but the bad news came from Russia. The first thing that Libya would remind Turkish citizens nowadays might be President Tayyip Erdoğan’s 150,000 doses of vaccine to the North African country at a time when the daily new Covid-19 cases