There is no doubt that Aslı Erdoğan is one of Turkey’s most prominent novelists, who has earned an international reputation thanks to her 18 books translated into many languages.
During the recent tense referendum campaign process, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited a “no” tent in Istanbul and had a brief conversation with the naysayer activists.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was in Malta on April 28 to attend the Gymnich meeting of the European Union foreign ministers, in his first encounter with his EU colleagues after the Turkish referendum and the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that reinstates monitoring process on Turkey after 13 years
Turkey’s impressive democratization process began in late 1999 after the European Union approved Ankara’s full membership candidacy to the bloc at the historic Helsinki Summit. As a diplomatic correspondent who has been covering the troubled relationship between Turkey and the EU for more than two decades, I had the chance to observe all phases and all dimensions of this bitter process
In his most recent in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 10, 2017 in Moscow, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed his wish to no longer use the term “normalization” in reference to Turkish-Russian ties, in a bid to emphasize that bilateral relations have returned to their state before Nov 24, 2015, when Turkey downed a Russian jet on the Syrian border
The referendum is over and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured a narrow win for the “Yes” campaign, heralding a new era for the entire country.
Turkey’s most important referendum that resulted in a shift to an executive presidency produced a major controversy with both “yes” and “no” camps claiming victory because the results were so close and the latter announcing that it would issue complaints about the irregularities during the voting and counting processes.
A heavy loaded foreign policy agenda is awaiting Turkey in the post-referendum era, regardless of the result on April 16.
Turkey will go to polls this Sunday to vote on a package of constitutional amendments that introduces a major shift to an executive presidential system from the current parliamentary system.
