President Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were in Cyprus on July 20, on the same occasion but for completely different reasons. For Erdoğan and Türkiye, July 20, 2024, marked the 50th anniversary of the “Peace Operation”, as Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit called it in 1974 to liberate the Island’s Turks from massacres.
Recent political developments in Türkiye and Cyprus reveal efforts to shift away from long-standing polarization towards a more normalized political environment. Following the local elections in Türkiye, a process has been initiated between the ruling AKP and the main opposition CHP. A similar process is taking place in Cyprus, where the AKP has re-established contact
The most important outcome expected from the May 13 visit of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Ankara as the guest of President Tayyip Erdoğan will be to avoid any unpleasantness. Yes, a series of protocols and agreements are on the table to fulfill the “Athens Declaration on Friendly Relations and Good Neighborliness” signed by
After President Tayyip Erdoğan signed and sent the approval for Sweden’s NATO membership to the Turkish Parliament, U.S. President Joe Biden also notified Congress for the sale of 40 F-16 fighter jets and 79 upgrade kits to Türkiye for $23 billion. A 15-day process has commenced. To prevent the opposition in Congress from blocking the
Turkish Presidential Communications Directorate announced on December 21 that President Tayyip Erdoğan congatulated Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Es-Sisi on his election for the third term. At first glance, it appears to be a routine courtesy call, but Erdoğan had for years called Sisi a “coup plotter”, bringing Egypt-Türkiye relations to a freezing point. Before I
Yesterday, on December 14, there were two important developments that show that Türkiye’s relations with both the United States and the European Union have become even more strained over the common denominator of Sweden’s NATO membership. One was the EU leaders’ summit’s acceptance of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia as candidate members, and the other was
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan is in Athens today for talks with Greek Prime Minister Kiryakos Mitsotakis. The High Level Cooperation meeting, which has not been held for seven years, will also take place on this occasion. With steps such as the mutual reduction of military exercises in the Aegean Sea, the world could have a
“We are making the wall impassable,” says Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya in an interview to YetkinReport, adding “We have prevented 88,854 people from crossing the Syrian border since we took office. We have audio recordings of smugglers that we listened to with a court order; there are those who tried 15 times and complained of
The second round of elections in Greece took place on Sunday, June 25, ending two months of the election marathon. The result was no surprise. As predicted, the New Democracy Party, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, won 40.3 percent of the votes and 158 parliamentary seats, giving it the majority to form a government on its
European Commission’s 2022 Turkey observation report entered Turkey’s agenda and exited almost at the same time it was published, mainly because it carves the contentious issues in the EU’s favour and the righteous determinations and criticism of the report get to be officially ignored. While the penultimate statement in the report that “Turkey is a
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