At times, history compresses into weeks, and some rare nights carry the burden of decades. June 13 might just have been one of those nights. That’s when Israel struck Iran in a bold, chilling, and calculated move. Missiles flew, tensions spiked, and the post-post-Cold War order shuddered. But beneath the noise, five brutal and illuminating
Israeli warplanes launched a major airstrike on Iran in the early hours of June 13. The attack targeted military and nuclear facilities, killing Iran’s Chief of General Staff Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami, and 6 scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program. The Natanz nuclear reactor was also hit. Reports claim Airospace Forces Commander
Six hitmen working for Israel who had been put to sleep in different European countries, were woken up two days earlier and sent to Tunisia. The day before, two ships of the Israeli navy, one of them a submarine, and a helicopter carrier disguised as a civilian freighter had been stationed off the coast of
In Türkiye, as main opposition CHP leader Özgür Özel called on the masses who filled İstanbul’s Saraçhane Square despite police batons, pepper spray and threats of arrest to resist the “one-man regime”, US President Donald Trump endorsed Erdoğan as “a good leader”. Trump gave this support during a meeting on March 25 at the White
By Mehmet Öğütçü and Rainer Geiger The Middle East, scarred by years of political instability and economic upheaval, finds itself at a critical juncture. The crises in Syria and Lebanon lay bare the region’s fragility in stark terms. Yet, within this profound crisis lies a unique opportunity to rebuild the Middle East anew. No single
Approximately one hour after Turksih President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated during the October 1 parliamentary opening that Israel has set its sights on Anatolia, American news outlets began reporting, citing intelligence sources, that Iran would launch a missile attack on Israel “within hours.” These reports included specificts about the types of Iran’s missiles, their estimated
Discussions about Türkiye-Iran relations often begin by emphasizing that the borders between the two countries have remained unchanged since the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab. This enduring stability is symbolic of the deep historical ties, political stability, and respect for the status quo despite centuries of fluctuating relations. Beyond the Sunni-Shia divide, these long-standing ties have
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on August 12 and, summarizing from the American State Department’s statement, asked Türkiye to use its influence to get Hamas to return to the negotiation table with Israel on August 15. Fidan, as I summarize from Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Öncü Keçeli’s statement, told him
No official statement has yet been made regarding how Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. However, several emerging scenarios are gradually taking shape. These scenarios primarily revolve around whether the attack was carried out from external or internal sources. On the
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish government officials issued strong condemnations following the assasination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Political Bureu, in Tehran, Iran. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed his “outrage” and “denounced the treacherous assassination” on the social media platform X on July 31, calling it “a delibarate attempt to undermine the