Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Turkey is watching the protests in Iran with growing concern, warning that U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of intervention could trigger dangerous regional consequences as Ankara pushes de-escalation through diplomacy with Gulf countries.
Let us begin with a very old and very familiar anecdote. The famous poet Yahya Kemal was once asked: “What do you like about Ankara?” His answer: “The return to Istanbul.” Mansur Yavaş thinks the exact opposite. Wherever he is, he wants to return to Ankara at the first opportunity, and he likes it when everything returns to Ankara. Not out of anxiety to make it to work on time. But because he is a man of the land. Because he is from Ankara.
NATO will buy communications software from Havelsan, the Ankara-based defense IT provider.
France, Britain and Ukraine signed a joint “statement of intent” after a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing in Paris, where nearly 30 Western leaders gathered. According to the statement, Britain and France will deploy troops to Ukraine in case of a peace agreement with Russia. Turkey is envisaged to take the lead in maritime security elements in the Black Sea.
The government and the Ankara Municipality are trading accusations over responsibility for water cuts in the capital after one of the driest years on record.
Ankara wants to sell Japan the ANKA UCAVs produced by TAI and Baykar’s Bayraktar TB2 and TB3 UCAVs.
Amid renewed clashes between the Syrian government and Kurdish-led militia in Aleppo, the Turkish Defense Ministry said that the Turkish army would support the operation if Damascus requested assistance.
The Turkish Air Force shot down a drone that entered Turkish airspace from the Black Sea on Dec. 15 but Ankara refused to identify it, although all indications point to Russia.
Russian and Ukrainian envoys in Ankara were warned not to wage their war in Turkish territory. The warning came as tensions in the Black Sea in the first half of December escalated to fresh peaks in the four-year-old war.
South Cyprus is seeking large-scale military support from both the United States and the European Union, while expanding defense cooperation with Israel, in a move raising concerns in Ankara and Northern Cyprus.
The opening line of the anthem of Mülkiye, the prestigious Political Science Faculty of Ankara University, declares a single mission: we exist so that the state does not collapse, so that the country does not cry. The “we” here is not a party or a leader’s entourage. It is a cadre trained to answer to something longer than a parliamentary term.
While Turkey and Iran were on opposite sides during the Syrian civil war, Israel's hostility to the new regime in Damascus appears to be pushing Ankara and Tehran closer as both define Israel as a threat to Syria’s stability.