Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recently made a speech where he has outlined how to gradually exit the Covid-19 lockdown for Turkey. After outlining the ‘normalisation plan’, Erdoğan has also talked about Turkey’s fight against ‘terrorists’ inside and outside Turkey. While describing these ‘terrorists’, he used the term “kılıç artığı”. This term can be […]

As the saying goes, “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” While the broken clock of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was right when he proposed recognizing the genocide of Native Americans at the hands of the United States, his words did not stem from a deep-seated desire for justice: in fact, quite […]

A Middle East that has been the political and military hotbed of world superpowers for hundreds of years, this time in a new world and with the new policy will be influenced by the seemingly peaceful policy of the West. Due to the unveiling of the Century Deal plan that included only the Israeli side […]

Turkish aerial and ground operations inside the territories of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have noticeably increased in recent weeks, accompanied with wide Kurdish reactions of resistance and solidarity accompanied with an increasing sense of imminent danger. The attacks face wide local reactions from people and various Kurdish sides with shy condemnation of Kurdish and […]

What follows is power politics. I want to give a larger perspective. The assumption is that it is of historical significance to have a strong Turkey between Europe, other Muslim nations, and Asia. Historically, the balance of power between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire played a central role in European foreign policy. It was a […]

Let’s face it: There is no justice and no peace between Israel and Palestinians. There is absence of war, yes, but otherwise it’s a total stalemate. The demands of the Israeli are not acceptable for the Palestinians, and the demands of the Palestinians are not acceptable for the Israeli. Simple and fatal. The Arabs are […]

On February 14, police in Ankara raided the homes of university students and found one of them reading Leylan, the first novel by Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), published a month prior on January 22. The newspaper BirGün reported that, while in custody, the police asked the student if they were […]

Politics. Not easy … not easy to understand what’s behind President Erdoğan’s decisions. I do not pretend that I have the answer to this riddle. It’s safe to assume that Erdoğan somehow has a plan, and that he somehow knows what he is doing. The question is, what could such a “plan” be? Personal gain and securing power, that’s the […]

No matter what anybody’s personal feelings or beliefs are about the Covid-19 pandemic, one truth we should all embrace is that we are awash in a sea of lies. Whether from mainstream, alternative, or my personal favorite “official” sources, the generally accepted narrative just doesn’t seem to match reality. And with more and more credible […]

The historical partnership between Germany and Turkey withstood many adverse tides, namely the EU membership question, human rights issues, and others. But there was always mutual respect. Berlin shows respect and restraint, as it does toward Russia. Likewise, Ankara doesn’t want to trick the Germans into anything. The “friendly conflict” or “conflictual friendship” of Turkey […]

As it has become commonplace in Turkey, political dynamics continue their constant change with each coming day from the detention of journalists to the Turkish President threating to ‘cut the tongues’ of Turkish pop stars. Such unpredictability is further exacerbated by the chronic economic crisis in the country as the wages and savings for a […]

The 21st century will be the Turkish century and the Turkish world. Turkey’s Daily Sabah quoted the Turkish president not long ago as saying that the concerns of neighbors and international powers about Ankara’s ambition were not unprovoked. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently hosted a meeting of Turkish-speaking countries known as the Council of […]

Politicians, the world over, do not seem to laugh at themselves as much any longer. That self-deprecating sense of humour, which distinguishes a statesmanlike political figure in the crowd of ordinary practitioners of politics, is now a lost art – which probably explains why freedom of expression is at a premium in modern time. Turkish […]

Adnan Çelik [1] When something bad happens in Kurdistan, Turkey, it is normal to fatefully exclaim: “A curse of a hundred years!”  There is no doubting the origin of this popular saying and the ghosts it evokes. It refers to the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire beginning in April 1915 by the […]

If everyone is guilty of something, is no one guilty of anything?             Morality doesn’t pick sides. It doesn’t care about borders, political ideologies, socio-economic status, religions, genders, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or whether you like pineapple on your pizza. (Have I covered everything we use to divide ourselves?).              There’s good, and there’s bad. Bad […]

There’s no one size fits all feminism.             Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Klein, and Tarana Burke, who started the #MeToo movement back in 2006, et al. have done a condemnable job analyzing and criticizing the effects the remains of Western patriarchal society have on women not having equal participation and more importantly access to, […]

Dear Respected and Honorable Hodja Effendi, As-salaam Alaikum I hope my letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. I had the pleasure of visiting you twice. Both visits remain cherished memories in my life. The compassion and honesty with which you answered my questions have remained seared in my memory. For that […]

Now that Sweden and Finland have officially applied for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it may be time to pay homage to a story about the Atlantic alliance that appeared in Henry Kissinger’s memoirs, White House Years. In 1965, he wrote a book about the organization, The Troubled Partnership: A Reappraisal of […]