Syria’s interim Foreign Minister Assad Hassan al-Shibani met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on January 15 in Ankara, marking the first such visit since the recent regime change in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was also present at the closed-door meeting held at the Presidential Compound in Beştepe district in Ankara. The high-level meeting
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Kurdish-issue focused DEM Party continue to confound their adversaries – and I mean this in a positive sense. Kurdish affairs have entered a new phase, particularly following the regime change in Syria. The most recent example of this shift was witnessed in the Turkish Parliament on December 17. DEM
The Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court handed down heavy sentences in the Kobani Trial on May 16. The most notable were the 42-year sentence for Selahattin Demirtaş and the 30-year sentence for Figen Yüksekdağ, both of whom were co-chairs of the HDP at the time. Their sentences were the natural headline in media. Like the
Turkish Foreign Minsiter Hakan Fidan had a meeting with his US counterpart Antony Blinken in Washington on March 8. “There is an opportunity to continue our path by opening a new page with a positive agenda,” he said in a press conference following the meeting and other discussions and contacts. Türkiye-US relations were a “historic”
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said via his “X” account that 29 ISIS members, who were preparing terrorist attacks on churches and synagogues in İstanbul, were captured in simultaneous operations in 9 provinces with the joint work of the Turkish Intelligence Organization (MİT) and General Police Directorate (Emniyet). A few days earlier, on December 21, Yerlikaya
In an unprecedented response to the US downing of a Turkish UCAV in Syria on October 5, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on October 6 that “the operation was not affected,” referring to the operations of Turkish military and intelligence forces against the PKK, which claimed responsibility for the October 1 bombing to
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
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
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