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
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
When I say hypocrisy of the European Union’s suggestion to Türkiye, I am not referring to the proposal by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to President Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on March 12. Tusk wants Turkey to take a leading role in the Russia-Ukraine talks. But this is not just in the hands of Poland,
This sentence, uttered by the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to the Financial Times, summarizes the view of Türkiye regarding the changing global geopolitics in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s comments in the last few weeks. This sentence is preceded by “Türkiye would want to be part of any new European security architecture
The return of Donald Trump to the White House has reshaped global geopolitics overnight. His administration’s reassertion of the America First doctrine, alongside public threats to reduce US commitments to NATO and pressuring European nations to shoulder more of their own defense costs, has placed the European Union at a crossroads. While Europe has long
Following a cabinet meeting on February 24, President Tayyip Erdoğan made provocative statements likely to irritate European Union officials already caught between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Erdoğan, “liberal democracy, the most captivating ideology of the last century, has entered a serious crisis and impasse.” He claims the resulting
Donald Trump’s warm and friendly phone call with Vladimir Putin and his subsequent approach to determining Ukraine’s fate resembles a real estate mogul deciding which bankrupt casino to offload next. One can almost hear him thinking, “Why pay for something when you can just give it away?” Trump and his loyal Secretary of Defense, Pete
Countries have expanded, merged, shrunk, or even disappeared over time. These days, we are hearing about incoming United States President Donald Trump making Canada the 51st state, buying or outright annexing Greenland, and reclaiming the Panama Canal. Many people are worried by these pronouncements and question whether they should be taken seriously. When you look
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
When selecting the person and event of the year for 2024 in both domestic and foreign policy, establishing the criteria is the challenging part – everything else falls into place naturally. My criterion was simple: impact on the overall political trajectory. Specifically, how an individual shaped the course of political developments in 2024, and which