Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Ankara would approve Finland’s NATO membership as Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is expected to visit Türkiye. “We will keep our promise. After meeting with the President (Niinistö) upon his visit on Friday, we will keep our promise we made,” Erdoğan said on March 15, answering a question about Finland’s
The international courtesy visits to Türkiye following the devastating earthquakes that destroyed a dozen cities continue with diplomatic turns. On February 27, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was welcomed by Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Adana. Following the 2013 coup in his country, he was the first Egyptian Foreign Minister to visit Türkiye in a
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said that the recent decision of several western countries to close their consulates as a precaution against a possible terror attack, aims at “starting a new psychological warfare in Türkiye,” adding that “it is an international operation against Türkiye.” “The ambassadors who wanted to carry out a legal operation against
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
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
The Turkish Minister of Interior Affairs, Süleyman Soylu, has been targeting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for some time now. As he targeted main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) stronghold, İstanbul, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu targeted Soylu in his parliamentary speech on December 5 as if he is regarding him as the soft spot of President
Finland seems to have already been convinced to do whatever Türkiye wants for granting NATO membership; from the extradition of outlawed PKK members to arms industry support. The question is whether Sweden’s new Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, will be able to convince President Tayyip Erdogan to let them join NATO. After meeting with NATO Secretary
After Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sweden and Finland wanted to join NATO. But since in the Western military alliance the decisions are taken unanimously, the approval awaits Türkiye’s consent, which depends on Ankara’s demands for a joint struggle against terrorism. In the last week, attempts to persuade Türkiye have increased visibly. The new Swedish Prime