Turkish Domestic Politics: Analysis and forecast on all relevant developments and insight about Turkish politics with its repercussions in its neighboring countries
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Aug. 21 the country’s largest-ever natural gas reserve discovery. Drilling ship Fatih found a natural gas reserve of 320 billion cubic meters in the “Tuna-1” field, close to the exclusive economic zone borders of Romania and Bulgaria, about 175 km northwest off the Turkish coastal town of Karadeniz Ereğli.
Journalists asked Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump on Nov. 3, about Turkey. Below is briefly what he said:– We must support the leaders of the opposition against Erdoğan. We can embolden them to be able to take on and defeat Erdoğan. Not by a coup, but by the electoral process.–
Turkey is the principal actor in the Eastern Mediterranean as it holds the longest coastline in the whole Mediterranean Sea and therefore the gateway to the Black Sea, Russia and the north. Its counterpart is not Greece, but Egypt, which holds the gateway to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.Failing to overcome Italy, its
The photo above published yesterday by the Turkish Defense Ministry shows Oruç Reis, the Turkish oil and gas search vehicle, sailing at waters off the southwest of the Cyprus Island, an area declared as an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), both Turkey and Greece.It is accompanied by five Turkish warships.The ships from Turkey’s Med Sea port
You have read news and many conspiracy theories since the Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, including that Israeli or Chinese agents behind the explosion, Hezbollah weapons were stashed there or the fire started with rocket fire. I want to offer another perspective on what happened in Beirut. Turkish Ambassador to Beirut
The Turkish media almost welcomed the recent appointment of the U.K.’s former ambassador to Ankara, Richard Moore, as the head of the British secret service MI6. Now, three diplomats who served in Turkey at the time and who speak Turkish head the world’s three major intelligence services. The remaining two are Gina Haspel, the head
Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, the former Family Minister of the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) government, is upset. Because she finds the timing of the recent debate on the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe initiative to prevent violence against women, rather “noteworthy” under a “historic atmosphere where the chains of Hagia Sophia are broken
The government is holding the Turkish public opinion with agendas like reopening Hagia Sophia as a mosque, the debate about the Istanbul Convention against violence against women, internet bans. But this does not mean that nothing is happening in foreign policy; the usual subject to distract attention from difficulties in the economy. On the contrary,
A sentence from President Tayyip Erdoğan’s speech on the occasion of the opening of the National Intelligence Organization’s new building in Istanbul’s neighborhood of Maslak on July 28 is a distortion of history that is hard to digest. In his speech, the President did not mention the founder of Turkey’s first central foreign intelligence structure,
According to President Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement, 350,000 people attended the Friday prayer at the Hagia Sophia’s reopening as a mosque on July 24. He was the one reading the Fatiha surah, the opening verses of Muslims’ holy book Quran to the attendees. He said that “a nation’s decades-long longing has subsided”. He also granted due