Stars are falling once the glitter wears off. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chairman and former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırm was giving an exclusive interview to CNN Türk TV host Ahmet Hakan last night on February 16, inevitably answering questions concerning electricity price hikes which caused a nation-wide outcry. Turkey’s political arena
When one speaks of a giraffe, what first comes to mind is a lovely animal, the tallest living on land and the biggest among the ruminants. An important characteristic of the giraffe is the fact that it is the animal with the highest blood pressure and the strongest heart. But despite their high blood pressure,
2021 Turkish export figures indicate that the share of high technology products in exports has dropped from 4 percent to 3 percent. We export more kilograms of goods but we earn less in dollars because the goods we export are not high value added products. Many people consider digital transformation as the remedy: They plan
In the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis, Ayşe Buğra writes, “I think that Turkish society welcomed the February 2001 crisis very softly.” Many people in Turkey lost their jobs, and even when they kept them, they lost a significant percentage of their earnings because of the unprecedented depreciation of the Turkish Lira. Yet they
Journalists Murat Ağırel, Barış Pehlivan and Hülya Kılınç, who were sentenced to prison for violating the Law on State Intelligence Services and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) by revealing the identity of a member of the office with their news, sent back to prison after the high court upheld their sentence. Ağırel and Pehlivan released
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s reconciliation visit to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) coincided with Valentine’s Day, February 14. While Erdogan was in the UAE, two countries signed 13 cooperation agreements. Erdogan and bin Zayed seemed to reconcile the past nine years of fighting and accusations. Among the agreements was
Turkey’s six opposition party leaders held a critical meeting on February 12 announcing their collaboration against President Tayyip Erdoğan’s Presidential System, indicating a formation of an unprecedented opposition block. In the 2019 local elections, many metropolitan municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara, were taken from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) governance. That victory paved
Four global players will define how our near future will look: the United States (US), the European Union (EU), China and Russia. The relationship between these “four horsemen of the Apocalypse” will – to a large degree – determine the new World Order. All indications today are that we are moving towards an even more
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) is a non-profit cultural institution that began its activity precisely 50 years ago, in 1972. During his student years in Germany, Nejat Eczacıbaşı had attended city festivals such as the Salzburg Festival. He returned to Turkey with the dream of a similar festival for Istanbul and took