Turkey

  The tables have turned in Turkey’s relationship to Europe over the past decade. That is fitting. Both Turkey and Europe have changed dramatically in those ensuing years, both economically and politically. The potential for Turkey’s accession to the European Union (EU) was long seen as a measure of Europe’s acceptance of a Muslim nation […]

The corruption scandal rocking Turkey shows no signs of abatement. Already dozens of high ranking officials and their close associates have either resigned, been jailed, or brought into questioning. The New York Times reports that even Erdogan’s own son appears to have been summoned for questioning. In the ensuing counteroffensive launched by the Erdogan administration […]

Last month, a massive corruption scandal rocked Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s political legitimacy. Believed to have been initiated by the Fethullah Gulen, a politically active cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, a police operation arrested over 50 police chiefs, prominent politicians’ relatives, and other supporters of the Erdogan administration. Yesterday, according to the New York Times, the […]

January 7 marks Christmas Day for Julian Calendar-abiding Orthodox Christians (Eastern and Armenian) and Turkey’s EU Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has taken the opportunity to wish Turkey’s dwindling Christian population a merry Christmas. Hurriyet Daily News reports: Anatolia has always been a country of tolerance and home to different beliefs and cultures throughout history, Çavuşoğlu said in a […]

The BBC reports that approximately 52 people, including five police chiefs and three sons of cabinet ministers were arrested yesterday for their alleged involvement in a bribery scandal. The operation is believed to be a part a larger political offensive led by Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Turkish Muslim leader currently living in exile in the U.S., and […]

Dear Readers, You’ve probably heard of or seen the massive protests in Turkey. Started out as a small protest in a public park called Gezi Parki located in Taksim district, the protests have reportedly spread to at least 15 Turkish cities. Ankara and Izmir saw massive crowds gathering at dawn on June 1st. I won’t […]

An Istanbul Court found Fazıl Say (pronounced as Sai), an internationally-renowned Turkish pianist and composer, guilty over “insulting religious values” over messages Say posted in his Twitter last year. Condemned by European Union, Amnesty International, PEN and others, Say’s case came to a rather disturbing finale with the court sentencing him to a ten-month suspended […]

Turkey’s Jailed Officers A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on Turkey’s record number of jailed journalists, citing a number of reports and statements by rights groups and international organizations that have criticized the country for arresting journalists over alleged terrorism charges. Just to make things clear for our readers, the journalists and rights activists are not […]

Turkey’s poor press freedom record contradicts its main strategic goal to establish the country as a regional power and the leader of the Muslim world. The state of press freedom in Turkey has recently been in the spotlight, particularly after Reporters Without Borders declared the country as “the world’s biggest prison for journalists” last December. […]

On February 1, U.S. Embassy in Ankara – in a calm, residential and business neighborhood — was bombed. At the time of writing this, police statements indicate that it is believed to be a suicide attack and the attacker(s) detonated the bomb inside the security checkpoint bunker, killing at least one security guard. Growing up […]

  At thirty-nine years old, Selahattin Demirtas is the Chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Turkish parliament. He has held this position since January 2010 and was first elected to parliament in 2007 as the MP for the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir, after which he joined the now-defunct Democratic Society Party […]

Over the decades the opportunistic Turkey has dictated its Middle Eastern relations based on shifts in the regional balance of power. In the early 1990s up until around 2006, Turkey was finely enmeshed in Western sentiments and policies. But beginning in 2006 it recognized a leadership vacuum in the Middle East and began attempting to […]