Talking about crises in Greek-Turkish relations is commonplace for those working in international relations. Seeing the historical enmity behind the current disagreements and holding the other side responsible for the less than ideal state of affairs is the dominant attitude on both sides of the Aegean.However, if one looks deeper, one can find the influence
The demand for the reinstatement of the death penalty is too serious an issue to be called a diversion. And this time though, it hits the Turkish society on a particularly sensitive spot. Discussions of the death penalty are coming up just as an Islamist sect sheik got arrested on charges of sexually harassing the
Turkey has been trying to break the France-Greece axis in the Eastern Mediterranean with intense diplomacy, while also trying to display its determination with a joint military drill with Turkish Cyprus, a move that has already irked Greece.Turkey’s recent regional diplomatic moves, mainly undertaken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the weekend, seek a crack
It was obvious from day one that the Turkish-Greek crisis in the East Mediterranean would not turn into a war. Not because of the strong statements by the European Union (EU) threatening Turkey with sanctions. The EU has long lost political leverage over Turkey, and mainly due to Cyprus. However, whether you like it or
1. Low interest-high growth proved unsustainable The first week of September was rather intense in terms of data releases. The growth numbers that were released on August 31 reflected an 11 percent decline compared to the previous quarter. This number is rather close to the OECD average. If we express the Q2 growth in annualized
The deficit and the Resource Curse The cost of extraction and the annual potential production level of 320 billion m3 natural gas recently discovered in the Black Sea have not been clarified yet. But it’s understood that this discovery will provide a substantial resource for the Turkish economy. And upon the discovery of this natural
Turkey and Greek Cyprus have slammed the U.S. administration for its recent decision to lift an arms sale embargo on Greek Cyprus, saying that the move would hurt peace efforts.The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sept. 1 that the decision “will have negative effects on the efforts to reach a settlement to
Turkey’s war on COVID is not going well at a time when the economy is also not performing well. TÜİK, the state-run statistic institute, announced on Aug. 31 that the economy shrank 9.9 percent in the second quarter of the year. The additional efforts to prevent a double-digit figure might surface when experts write on
Journalist Mehveş Evin has criticized in a column at Duvar English the “ill-planned investments” in the Black Sea region of Turkey in the wake of last weeks’ flash floods and landslides that killed nine people, with six of them being still missing.The province of Giresun was hit heavily and the town of Dereli is now
If the previous generations of EU statesmen and Turkish leaders, the men who put together the Association Agreement in 1963, and the Additional Protocol of 1971 could see the state of Turkish-EU relations today, they would be deeply dismayed. Turkey has had a functioning Customs Union with the Union on industrial goods, for very nearly