It has been more than two months since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the government would outline crucial reform packages on the economy and judiciary. In a statement this week, Erdoğan said works on the reforms are almost ready to be made public.
The idea of holding an international conference to discuss how to make the best use of and share the hydrocarbon richness of the eastern Mediterranean first came to the fore by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last year during the days when the tension between Turkey and Greece was at its peak.
The days to come will feature important meetings between Turkey and Greece. First, the two countries’ military representatives will resume de-confliction talks at NATO after a two-month break. More importantly, their exploratory talks will resume with a 61st round on Jan. 25 in Istanbul.
With the New Year holidays over, the coming days will observe that diplomacy is gaining more and more momentum. On Jan. 21, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will meet the European Union’s foreign and security policy representative Josep Borrell for the preparations of the upcoming Turkey-EU Summit.
As of this month, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has completed the first half of its five-year term in office. Under normal conditions, the government has another two-and-a-half years to go before scheduled elections in June 2023.
It’s no coincidence that Turkey was one of the first countries to welcome the reconciliation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia on Jan. 4. Through a written statement by the Foreign Ministry, Turkey welcomed the reopening of land, air and sea borders between the two countries, expressing hopes of a comprehensive and lasting solution and that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would lift all other sanctions against the Qatari people as soon as possible.
As can be recalled, on July 29, 2020, the Turkish government shifted its methodology in disseminating daily coronavirus figures by merely reporting COVID-19 patients, differently from the World Health Organization (WHO) guidance that called on countries to register all the new cases, including asymptomatic ones.
This year, Turkey and China are set to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, with hopes to further improve economic and trade relations. China is already Turkey’s top trade partner in Asia with around $20 billion trade volume.
On Dec. 28, this column concluded that one of Turkey’s priorities in foreign policy would be to balance its ties between Russia and its Western partners to avoid being excluded from the trans-Atlantic alliance once the Biden administration comes to power on Jan. 20.
