President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s lengthy address to his lawmakers in parliament on Feb. 10 went a long way to clarifying more broadly what he means by a new constitution.
It has only been three weeks since the newly sworn-in President Joe Biden took office in the United States. It would be hard to suggest that this short period has offered promising signs re-garding Ankara-Washington ties in the new era.
The year 2021 will mark significant developments concerning international relations in the broader Mediterranean basin. Efforts to de-escalate tension between Turkey and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean and prospects for a new initiative to resolve the Cyprus problem are the two most important tracks to follow in the coming months.
Next week will see an important gathering in the Turkish capital. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop, Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül, and other senior officials are all expected to attend the oath-taking ceremony of İrfan Fidan as the new member of the Constitutional Court.
One of the staples of Turkish politics is writing a brand-new constitution. Although it was amended a number of times, the backbone of the Turkish constitution dates back to the 1980 military coup. Drafted by the military junta, the constitution was put to a national referendum in 1982.
With the cessation of armed conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region with the victory of Azerbaijan, which liberated its territories from Armenian occupation, ideas for constructing a cooperation mechanism with the participation of all Caucasus countries have frequently started being voiced.
Turkey immediately shut down its primary and high schools, as well as private and state universities, on March 13, 2020, just a few days after the first coronavirus case was spotted in the country.
One important success concerning the execution of Turkey and Greece’s 19 years of exploratory talks is the strictly imposed media blackout. Both sides have always been very cautious in not leaking the issues discussed in the closed-door meetings to mitigate public pressure on the diplomats.
Turkish and Greek delegations will meet today in Istanbul to carry out the 61st round of the exploratory talks, after nearly a five-year hiatus. The last meeting between the two sides took place in Athens on March 1, 2016.
