“Conflicts can only be solved when they are still hot,” Henry Kissinger once famously said. But Cyprus seems to overrule this quote since the 50-years old question seems to be defrosting at last.
The terrible massacre by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on a nightclub in Ortaköy last week has triggered Turkey’s most traditional debate on “secular versus conservative” lifestyles.
At the end of each year it has become a tradition to evaluate the past year and write about expectations from the coming one. Scenarios about the country, the region and the world are being specified in newspapers and columns. This year I will restrain myself from doing this for a couple of reasons.
The tragic terrorist attack last Saturday in Istanbul was claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a subgroup responsible for organizing the suicide attacks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). As such, the PKK is the true perpetrator.
Earlier this week, the American dollar rose to a record high against the Turkish Lira, upon which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on citizens to convert their foreign exchange into liras. Yet it is not only Turks who are concerned nowadays. There are some who are in a much worse situation than us: The Mexicans.
The Oxford English Dictionary has declared “post-truth” as the most popular word of the year. Use of the term has increased by around 2,000 percent in 2016 compared to last year.
Finally the U.S. elections have got a winner. But the process is not over yet. They have given way to a world-wide discussion: What does Trump’s victory mean after all?
“There are still open wounds from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. They have only been plastered over, but never given a chance to be healed. Maybe that is because our leaders never found an opportunity to properly address the regional problems on a long term basis, with consideration of the peoples’ legitimate aspirations.”
“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come,” said Victor Hugo famously. True, nothing is as powerful as something whose time has come. The same applies to Turkey’s “Mosul question.”
