Türkiye’s ongoing peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) holds the potential to end one of the country’s most destructive conflicts of the past four decades. Yet a lasting settlement cannot be achieved in isolation. Unless the Kurdish question in northern Syria is addressed, any peace at home will remain fragile. Instability in
The Ukraine-Russia ceasefire and Iran-Europe nuclear talks are being hosted by Türkiye this week in Istanbul, with a two-day interval between them. The Ukrainian and Russian delegations will hold their third round of talks this year on Wednesday, July 23, in İstanbul. The discussions will focus on ceasefire conditions, but the likelihood of reaching an
Turks, who have turned their faces towards the West for decades, have been facing visa restrictions for nearly fifty years. Almost everyone has a positive or negative visa story to tell. As the difficulties reached their peak, the European Union took a step forward. The EU’s decision last week to adopt a more positive approach
In Turkish politics, the threat of imprisonment has reached CHP leader Özgür Özel. Presidential decrees have been sent to the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) to lift the parliamentary immunity of Özel and CHP İzmir MP Tuncay Özkan for trial. The reason is their accusation of the Court of Appeals members of staging a “coup
The Cyprus issue has remained stuck in conceptual traps for decades, unable to move beyond being a diplomatic headline. Concepts such as “two-zone, two-community federation,” “two sovereign states,” and “confederation” have become not the solution itself but the terminological cloak of the lack of a solution. Today, the issue is no longer “how to name
In the theater of Middle East geopolitics, a U.S. strike is rarely just a regional act — it’s a signal to markets, rivals, and allies alike that the temperature just went up. But let’s be clear: this wasn’t a bold initiative from Donald Trump. It was, somewhat predictably, the next act in a script sketched
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
Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in İstanbul on May 16 for possible peace talks. These are the third round of negotiations between the two countries, since the Russian war on Ukraine started in 2022; the previous two were also held in Türkiye with the mediation of the Turkish government. This time, a high-ranking US delegation
The energy map of the Middle East may be redrawn with the revival of the Kirkuk–Baniyas oil pipeline—a move that could sideline Türkiye. Iraq’s decision to bring back to life the pipeline connecting Kirkuk with Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Baniyas is not merely an infrastructure investment; it’s a strategic maneuver capable of shifting the