A dinner given by Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko tonight on Jan 5 in honor of Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul may have repercussions in regional politics. Another guest of honor of the dinner at Conrad Hotel in Istanbul is Metropolit Ephifanios of Kiev whose independence (autocephaly) from the Moscow church was approved earlier in the day

What a day! Here what has happened on Dec 19, 2018 in approximate chronological order: • The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi-Israeli backchannel rapprochement took a hit after two officials close to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were suspended from office because of their involvement in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal

Turkish media associations react to the words of President Tayyip Erdoğan on Dec 17 targeting a Turkish journalist, Fatih Portakal working for the Fox TV-Turkey as the main news bulletin anchor. Mocking with his surname, Portakal, which means the orange fruit in Turkish, Erdoğan said the following in a public speck in Konya: “Someone comes

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Dec 16 that Turkey could consider to work with Bashar al-Assad in Syria if Assad would come to power through a democratic election. The statement Çavuşoğlu made during the Doha Conference marks the most significant change in Turkey’s Syria policy since the early stages of the Syria civil

According to the mood in the American administration, the U.S. relations with Turkey is the most problematic one by far, not even closer to the current strains with China or Russia. And that is exactly the mood in the Turkish government circles regarding its most important ally and it is likely to be tested once

In a press release on Nov 27 the Turkish National Security Council (MGK) said it would not allow an American “fait accompli” in Syria, without naming but clearly pointing at it. Slamming the cooperation of “some countries” with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) Syria wing the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the written statement said

A few days after the call of Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan on Turkish academics abroad to return their homes for incentives and attractive scholarships “to reverse the brain drain”, 13 Turkish academics were taken under custody on Nov 16 due to suspicions of undermining the government. There were prominent professor of law Dr Turgut Tarhanlı

There are still a lot of unknowns about the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s İstanbul Consulate on October 2 but there is enough to update the case based on the publicized information so far. Those might change along the way as new evidence comes up, most importantly the dead body

Saudi Arabia’s state TV reported late on Oct 19 that Riyadh has admitted that the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul on Oct 2 where he went to get reportedly his divorce documents confirmed. The Saudi explanation is that Khashoggi was killed in a “fist fight” with consulate officials.