Oscillation and contradiction are the primary characteristics of political life in Turkey in its Erdogan era, especially in recent years, since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising against the Bashar Al-Assad regime.
But these traits have become (...)
Every year, Turkish people eagerly await the New Year's Eve celebrations and the accompanying festivities. But December 2013 brought a shock that stunned public opinion and dampened the holiday spirit for many in Turkey. That was the month that the (...)
An exultant, jubilant climate has suddenly swept Anatolia. The Turks had been hoping for such a moment, but it had begun to seem so far away. Then, without advance notice, they awoke to the joyful news of the release of their fellow citizens after a (...)
After years of working hard to reach this crucial juncture in his political career, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a son of Istanbul's working class Kasmpaa neighbourhood, has now crossed the threshold into the Çankaya Kökü, the (...)
It is 1 May, International Workers Day, and it looks as if it is not going to unfold like any previous Workers Day in Turkey.
Istanbul at dawn has the air of a military barracks, and to judge by the measures announced by the Turkish Interior (...)
After long leaving it to his followers and disciples to make hints and float balloons, the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) finally broke its silence. Turkey's ruling party would back its leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan (RTE), for (...)
Turkey these days is brimming over with conflicting images that have been riveting public attention and causing passions to flare at levels that have been unseen since Turkey's last date with rigged elections in the 1940s.
Today, the controversy (...)
Bilal Necmetin Erdogan has finally surfaced in public again. He had been shying away from the cameras for months due to his alleged involvement in corruption and graft probes and the voice attributed to him on a number of leaked telephone recordings (...)
A rainbow formed by millions of flags and streamers seemingly miles long and dominated by bright yellows, reds and greens spread over the eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir recently, described by a large segment of Turkish society as for all (...)
Few would dispute that the forthcoming municipal elections that have begun to rivet public attention in Turkey will mark a turning point in Anatolian political life. Many believe that these elections, scheduled for 30 March, will mark the threshold (...)
Generally speaking, Turkey, a country famed for straddling East and West, is considerably better off today than a decade or two ago. However, observers cannot help but notice that something is way off kilter in the country and that people do not (...)
This is truely a season of wonders in Turkey, given the extraordinarily contradictory and self-serving narratives now being put out by the country's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The repercussions of the on-going graft scandal continue (...)
There are two distant tunes emerging from Turkey these days, and they are quite discordant. One hums the official line, which goes “all's fine and dandy in this land, apart from a handful of enemies, conspirators and other troublemakers who we're (...)
Assailed by mounting pressures from all sides, the powers-that-be in Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) have barely a free moment to scramble for solutions or alternatives. Municipal elections are just around the corner, in only a (...)
The wheels of the prime minister's office must keep turning. There can be no putting off meetings, speeches and tours abroad. So, naturally, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — now familiarly abbreviated to RTE — set off on a scheduled (...)
Before the 1990s drew to a close, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was dismissed as mayor of Istanbul and sentenced to six months in jail. He emerged after serving only four and paying a fine roughly equivalent to $80 at the time as the (...)
It has been six months since a first wave of angry anti-government protests swept Turkey, initially triggered by the forceful break-up of a peaceful sit-in in Gezi Park adjacent to Taksim Square in central Istanbul.
That wave has now risen again, (...)
'Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him'
– Martin Luther King
When the wave of uprisings often called the Arab Spring swept (...)
Istanbul, Turkey's commercial and business centre, has received its first snowfalls, and the capital Ankara, about 500km inland and 800m above sea level, is now covered in a glittering white blanket.
Turkish winters are cold and this winter promises (...)
For Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this has been a tough year, one in which he saw his own popularity ebb at home and his country's image slip abroad.
Izmir lost its bid to organise Expo 2020 on 27 November, when a selection panel voted (...)
For four months Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has seized every opportunity to inveigh against what he describes as the “military coup” in Egypt. The tens of millions of Egyptians who marched against Muslim Brotherhood rule appear to (...)
Suddenly and without advance notice, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has performed a 180 degree shift in its relationship with Baghdad. As though bowing to the inevitable, and to avoid drawing out its embarrassment, Ankara has (...)
Sometimes the difference between today and yesterday can be as stark as the difference between day and night. Around a decade and a half ago, the Turkish parliament erupted into chaos when the members of the Virtue Party, a predecessor of the (...)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed intent on answering all the questions that were put to him in a press conference that he held at Ankara's Esenboga Airport before setting off to Kosovo. Most he answered at relative length, apart from (...)
Within a day, Turkish security agencies succeeded in catching Kurdish political detainees who had succeeded in escaping from Bingöl Prison in Southeast Anatolia on 26 September. The prison break had occasioned great excitement and no small degree of (...)