Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Just three days after Tel Aviv announced its decision to recognize Somaliland, Ankara moved to reinforce its position, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meeting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Ankara on Dec. 30.
My wicked editor and I have been on the phone constantly the last three days to exchange ideas on just what the word of the year should be. We toyed with “secret witness,” “active repentance” (read ratting out), “strategic autonomy,” “voice of the streets,” “angst,” and “normalization.” Finally, I used a columnist’s initiative and settled for meşruiyet, or legitimacy, over normalleşme/normalization.
Hasan İmamoğlu is the father of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been jailed for nearly nine months. Ekrem İmamoğlu faces a staggering threat of up to 2,500 years in prison. Naturally, the İmamoğlu family had never, at any point in their lives, imagined facing such severe threats of imprisonment and punishment. For this reason, the family is, quite naturally, experiencing deep shock and bewilderment. As part of the case, Hasan İmamoğlu’s companies were also seized. So where does this “fear of communism,” this urge to “fight communism,” actually come from?
For me, this year, Nov. 26, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, arrived as a photograph. A staged one in which the woman’s face was hidden, but the hair defied all attempts at concealment. Sümeyye Akyol’s Domination, shown this week at young artists’ platform BASE at the Ritz-Carlton Residences, is built on fictional photographs using real women; mostly her friends and family.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise day-long visit to Ankara on Nov. 19, at a time when press reports revealed the U.S. and Russia had prepared a new framework peace plan.
The indictment against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief rival, Ekrem İmamoğlu, not only accuses the jailed Istanbul mayor of corruption, but also targets the CHP, laying bare the political nature of the case. The charge sheet alleges that the CHP is being taken over by a criminal organization and on that basis prosecutors also notified the Court of Cassation that there may be grounds to close the main opposition party.
The pressure is mounting on Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his party CHP, with investigations about the corruption allegations now extending to his immediate family and allied journalists, as CHP Chair Özgür Özel tries to challenge the government by divulging the misdoings of Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akın Gürlek.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted the DEM Party’s İmralı delegation, as the parliamentary commission listened to Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç for the first time since the PKK announced that all its forces in Turkey had begun withdrawing to northern Iraq.
Friedrich Merz’s visit to Ankara marks a new phase in German-Turkish relations — the trip served domestic power dynamics in Berlin in political terms rather than through concrete agreements. The chancellor did not come because Turkey has fundamentally changed, but because Germany finds itself in deep economic and political uncertainty. By Ozan Demircan
The brief respite after a court rejected a bid to unseat main opposition CHP Chair Özgür Özel and annul the party’s 2023 congress has now given way to a widening espionage probe. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his campaign director Necati Özkan were rearrested on espionage charges, while a trustee was appointed to TELE1 television channel and its editor-in-chief, Merdan Yanardağ, was also taken into custody on Oct. 24.
Amid a sustained crackdown on opposition-run municipalities, CHP Chair Özgür Özel has begun unveiling alleged corruption within government-affiliated municipalities. Özel disclosed specific dates, figures, locations, names—and even codes linked to a secret witness—to support his claims. His announcement follows the release of the first indictment involving businessperson Aziz İhsan Aktaş, whose testimony led to the arrest of seven CHP mayors.
The photos taken at the start of the new legislative year, in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan posed with chairs of opposition parties, including AKP breakaways, in the absence of the CHP, revealed the contest between the AKP and the CHP to win their support. After the images went viral, Erdoğan renewed his call for a new constitution more forcefully, while his ally, MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli, insisted that the parliamentary commission visit PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı and urged Öcalan to call on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to lay down arms. The same day, slogans in Kurdish for Öcalan’s freedom — “Biji Serok Apo” — were chanted at the DEM Party’s group meeting. The party, which holds the third-largest number of seats in parliament, could significantly alter the political dynamics if it supports a constitutional change. While the photos of opposition figures with Erdoğan drew sharp criticism in the opposition media, concerned about alienating them, CHP Chair Özgür Özel personally called all opposition party chairs to ease the row.