On September 15, while domestic attention in Türkiye was focused on the CHP’s “absolute nullity” case, U.S. President Donald Trump received Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his delegation at the White House. The Patriarch’s itinerary for September 16 included a breakfast at the Turkish Embassy, a luncheon at the Greek Embassy, and a dinner
The photos taken during Erdoğan’s meeting with Putin at the Shanghai Summit reveal a lot about Turkey-Russia relations and, beyond that, East-West relations. (Photos: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) I obtained the photos from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram page. They are from the meeting between President Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on
August 18, 2025, may go down in history as a dark day for European diplomacy. Three days after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, U.S. President Donald Trump, outmaneuvering European leaders, summoned them to his doorstep, saying, “Come, let me explain.” Putin had not wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the
The three-hour meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 at the Elmendorf–Richardson Air Force base in Anchorage, Alaska, bore some resemblance to the Yalta Conference of 1945, which marked the end of World War II. Eighty years ago, the United States, the Soviet Union (USSR), and the United
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
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
On May 7, the European Parliament approved, by majority vote, the report of Türkiye rapporteur Nacho Sánchez Amor during its session in Strasbourg. The report largely reiterates concerns that have been voiced since 2018. It emphasizes that Türkiye’s democratic standards have significantly deteriorated due to its counter-terrorism legislation, the lack of cooperation between Turkish law
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
When I was writing my book “Kürt Kapanı (The Kurdish Trap)” about the full story of the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the founding leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Süleyman Demirel, the Turkish President of the time, told me that İsmail Hakkı Karadayı, the Chief of General Staff at the time, had said
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