Guest Voices

If Cyprus were a film, it would probably be The Truman Show. Not because anything dramatic is happening, quite the opposite. The genius of The Truman Show is that nothing seems to be happening at all.

The U.S. and Israel have started a war against Iran, although Trump does not want to call it as such. I saw no way out of the impasse between the two parties, although the Iranian side was optimistic after the third round of nuclear talks.

Diplomacy loves spectacle because spectacle is easy to schedule, easy to photograph, and very easy to mistake for substance. Add social media and you get the Olympics of visibility: who attended, who hosted, who was seated where, who spoke, and, in the end, who ate what.

Forty Cleavers or Forty Mules for Iran? No information has leaked from the U.S.-Iran talks in Oman other than the statements from the two sides portraying them as positive. But it is no secret that Iran is faced with an impossible choice, like a thief in a Turkish fairy tale.

The planned meeting of the Turkish–Greek High-Level Cooperation Council (HLC) in Ankara on February 11 comes when the calm in relations between Ankara and Athens conceals numerous fragilities. That’s just one reason why the meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is unlikely to produce a breakthrough. Rather, the meeting aims to keep communication channels open while both sides pursue sharply divergent agendas in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.

The planned meeting of the Turkish–Greek High-Level Cooperation Council (HLC) in Ankara Feb. 9–13 comes when the calm in relations between Ankara and Athens conceals numerous fragilities.

The Casablanca line everyone remembers wrong is: “Play it again, Sam.” The film doesn’t actually include that. What Ilsa Lund says in the movie is quieter and more revealing: “Play it, Sam… Play ‘As Time Goes By.’”

The European Union’s push to conclude free trade agreements (FTAs) is reshaping the economic landscape around its periphery. Chief among these is the long-negotiated EU–Mercosur Trade Agreement, alongside accelerating talks with India. While these agreements are formally bilateral between the EU and third parties, their implications extend well beyond signatories. For Turkey, which is bound to the EU through a customs union covering industrial goods, these deals carry direct consequences—despite Ankara not being a negotiating party.

There are nations that approach foreign policy the way sensible adults approach dinner: they taste, they adjust, they stop before their eyes start watering in public.

At the turn of the year, a familiar ritual repeats itself in Turkey. Gyms raise their membership fees. Tradespeople adjust their prices. Real estate agents pocket higher commissions by systematically pushing up sale prices. Hardly anyone objects. Hardly anyone asks what added value is being offered. Price hikes are taken for granted — not because products have improved, but because inflation exists.