Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed the presidential decree to bring the critical presidential and general elections forward to May 14, while the political parties are closing ranks in search of unlikely alliances, as even the smallest parties may have an impact in the head-to-head race. President Erdoğan, on March 10, officially set the election
I asked Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomez Cravinho, whom I met with a small group of journalists after his visit to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu in Ankara, how would Portugal react if Türkiye approved only Finland’s NATO application and not Sweden’s, even though they applied together? The question is meaningful because decisions in NATO
It would have escaped my attention if I had not followed the Twitter accounts of two terrorism experts. One from Türkiye, Nihat Ali Özcan of the think tank TEPAV, and the other from the US, Bruce Hoffman from Georgetown University. Both drew attention to the fact that The Washington Post, in the caption of the
Türkiye condemned Sweden over the burning of a copy of the Quran, the holy Book of Muslims in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm on January 21, further straining ties between the two countries as Sweden seeks Turkish approval to be a member of the defense alliance NATO. A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine to support peace and negotiation efforts, in a written statement by the Turkish Presidential Office on January 5. The statement was issued following a telephone conversation between Erdoğan and Putin. Türkiye has been in contact both with Putin and Ukrainian
Greece is adopting a hostile attitude against Türkiye and “it is time for NATO to put a stop to this spoilt behavior” Turkish Minister of National Defence Hulusi Akar said, at the 2022 evaluation press briefing at the Ministry’s headquarters in Ankara on December 24. In the meeting, the Turkish Minister made it clear that
There has been no answer yet to the questions “where, when, or under what conditions will Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meet Syrian President Bashar Assad.” Another question without an answer is whether Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supporting the thwarted July 15, 2016 coup attempt through US-based
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated Ankara’s determination to continue cross-border military operations into Syria and Iraq, hinting once more that a land incursion might follow ongoing air operations in his speech on November 23. “While we continue our air strikes without interruption, we will strike against terrorists from the ground at the most convenient
Turkish Ministry of National Defense announced that Turkish Air Force jets carried out a comprehensive operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Syria and Iraq in the early hours of November 20. National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that the “Air Operation Claw-Sword” was carried out within the framework of “legitimate defense”