Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
The secularism-versus-religion debate continues in full force, with the ruling alliance fueling tensions after a father who objected to the use of a religious hymn as a school bell at his child’s school in Kocaeli’s Derince district was detained.
The armed unmanned naval vehicle Sancar, jointly developed by Havelsan and Yonca Shipyard, was commissioned into the Navy at a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Feb. 24.
The parliamentary commission established to prepare a roadmap for resolving the Kurdish issue, in line with the PKK’s decision to dissolve, has completed its six-and-a-half months of work. Attention has now shifted to how the ruling parties will time the legislative steps. The report falls short of defining the Kurdish issue or calling for education in Kurdish, but instead stresses the brotherhood between Turks and Kurds. Now questions remain about the timing of the legislative process. The first legislative steps are expected toward the summer rather than Newroz, and it is unclear whether all the legislative steps addressed in the report will be completed this year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opted not to attend the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-led Board of Peace in Washington — much like he previously declined to travel to Davos for the initiative’s launch — signaling a calibrated diplomatic balancing act. While Erdoğan is among the few leaders known to have a personal rapport with U.S. President Donald Trump, he refrained from participating in both events hosted by Trump. Instead, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan represented Turkey on both occasions.
The “process report” that charts the roadmap for Parliament toward solving the Kurdish question has been finalized. The document did not push the limits of the AKP and MHP too far; it received a cautious “hopeful” endorsement from the CHP on the grounds that accepted democratic demands “must not remain mere words on paper”; the DEM Party deemed it “better than nothing” despite its shortcomings; and the Yeni Yol group welcomed with a familiar “not enough, but yes.”
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.
The parliamentary commission examining the Kurdish problem is expected to complete its joint report by the end of February, marking nearly one year since PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the PKK to lay down arms on Feb. 27, 2025.
President of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) Şekip Avdagiç has triggered a wave of criticism after suggesting the government should introduce policies to limit Turkish citizens’ spending on vacations abroad.
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 interim Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have again agreed to extend a cease-fire in northern Syria by an additional 15 days, postponing the implementation of recent arrangements, as diplomatic engagement involving Turkey has intensified.
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.
When war and peace are mentioned, the first person that comes to mind is the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and his novel of the same title, a cornerstone of world literature. In this work, Tolstoy renders war and peace with striking realism. World history, after all, is also a history of wars — and, inevitably, a history of peace.