Unrefuted media reports suggested that Turkey has made a request to the U.S. to purchase 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighter jets and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes.
Today Ankara is hosting the 63rd round of the Turkish-Greek consultative talks with not much hope of a breakthrough.
The Turkish Parliament convened yesterday for the beginning of the new legislative year after around three months of recess. This also marks the return of hard politics and the end of the long summer for politicians who spent time in their constituencies. A heavy and intense agenda awaits them.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin are perhaps the world leaders that meet the most in their more than 18-year-old cooperation. This interaction has two dimensions: One reflects bilateral trade, economic and energy cooperation, which has grown and diversified over the past 20 years, and the other covers regional tensions between the two countries that sometimes lead to cooperation and sometimes to competition.
Next week on Oct. 1, the Turkish Parliament will resume its work that will close a long summer season for politics and political parties. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will address parliamentarians on that day, is expected to give important messages concerning domestic politics and future moves of his government.
The past week has observed intense diplomacy in New York where world leaders met for the 76th U.N. General Assembly.
Doubtless to say, the need for a resolution to the Kurdish question means a lot for the stability and peace of today’s and tomorrow’s Turkey, which has been suffering massively from this trouble for the past 40 years.
The ongoing Afghanistan crisis is certainly the most important issue as the fragile situation in this country could cause further humanitarian tragedies and instability beyond its borders. Turkey is in talks with Qatar for the resumption of commercial flights to the international airport in Kabul and intensely in dialogue with the United States over Afghanistan-related matters.
In an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Sept. 1, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, rekindled a long-standing debate over the European defense autonomy from the United States.
