Signs of a substantial change in Germany’s policies toward Turkey have taken more concrete form over the course of the summer, after the Bundestag voted in June to move German troops and aircrafts from the İncirlik base to Jordan over Ankara’s refusal to allow German lawmakers to visit the base.
In a recent interview with Le Point magazine, French President Emmanuel Macron rejected the reporter’s description of him as a “new cool kid” on the global stage. After all, he joked, it is he who has to speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan every 10 days.
Although there are over two years until the next presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019, polls and forecasts about who will run against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are dominating the political agenda in Turkey.
In his daily Hürriyet column on Aug. 7, journalist Abdulkadir Selvi wrote that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently instructed his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials to prepare a substantial report on the foreign links of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ) of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen.
On April 16, the Turkish public voted in favor of a set of comprehensive constitutional amendments that overhaul the governance system into an executive-presidency model, a move considered to be the beginning of a new era in Turkey.
When Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım replaced Ahmet Davutoğlu in May 2016 as both the prime minister and the chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), one of his first messages was about a substantial recalibration of Turkey’s foreign policy.
It has become clear that two-week long tensions in East Jerusalem will linger as Israel will continue to take restrictive measures to Palestinians’ access to the Harem al-Sherif, one of the most holiest sites, not only for the people of Palestine but for the entire Muslim world
It was an ironic coincidence that more than a dozen executives and journalists from the daily Cumhuriyet appeared in court on Press Freedom Day. Twelve out of 17 have been in prison since November 2016 and it took nine months for them to defend themselves in court
After a week of a war of words between Turkish and German senior officials, it was good to hear Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci’s constructive messages on the Ankara-Berlin ties
