Thirty years ago today, a group of artists, writers, and opinion leaders were at the Madımak hotel in the eastern-Anatolian province of Sivas as a part of Pir Sultan Abdal Festival. Alevi and left-wing participants, including poets and well-known writers, were there to attend seminars and discussions for the festivities. On July 2, 33 of
The only common feature of the diplomatic contacts of Türkiye in the last few days, especially after the new bureaucracy was formed with the critical elections, is the focus on the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). With Hakan Fidan, to whom President Tayyip Erdoğan entrusted the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for thirteen
On June 3, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan first took the oath of office at the Turkish Grand National Assembly and began his third term as president after winning the elections on the second round on May 28. Then he laid flowers at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at Anıtkabir in the rain, and later,
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