Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
There are mornings when you wake up and discover someone has quietly replaced your streaming subscriptions with a box of VHS tapes. The picture is grainy, the dialogue familiar, the plot depressingly simple: detention, indictment, polarisation, and non-functioning courts. Welcome back to the future, 1990s Turkey in the 21st century.
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.
A dangerous escalation has erupted between Damascus forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in two strategically important neighborhoods of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. As clashes intensified, evacuation notices, issued Dec. 8. by Syria’s central government in the two key districts, have raised the possibility of a military operation. Simultaneously, the Defense Ministry said that Turkey would support an expected Syrian army operation in Aleppo “if requested.”
The drug-using operation that started with artists in October, then extended to sports, media, business and politics, continues with the unlawful sharing of private conversations and denials of drug use despite forensic reports. The names of some prosecutors, politicians and advisers appeared in the investigation early on, yet media coverage has so far remained silent about them.
Although unions have refused to participate in the ongoing Minimum Wage Determination Commission meetings, the government is seeking their approval on the 2026 minimum wage — a move seen as an attempt to legitimize a process from which labor groups protest for being excluded.
The withdrawal of a secret witness’ testimony — and the prosecution’s disregard for that fact — in the Istanbul probe is raising questions about the credibility of the indictment against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, CHP Chair Özgür Özel said. Newly released supplementary documents reveal serious contradictions in how secret witnesses were handled by prosecutors, although the government calls it “the largest corruption file of the century.”
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.
Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders met under the facilitation of United Nations Secretary-General’s personal envoy, María Angela Holguín Cuéllar, on Dec. 11. Tufan Erhürman and Nikos Christodoulides reportedly agreed to expedite a series of confidence-building measures. Talks to resolve the decadeslong Cyprus issue are unlikely to gain traction before mid-2026, as both the north and south prepare for critical elections.
CHP Chair Özgür Özel escalated his rhetoric, urging people to take to the streets in response to what he described as a diminishing role for Parliament. Addressing crowds at public rallies and budget debates in Parliament, Özel emphasized the historic weight of legislative authority. “The right to control the budget is humanity’s greatest democratic achievement. Parliament is not born of the budget — the budget is born of Parliament,” he said.
The political parties represented in the parliamentary commission — tasked with supervising the Terror-Free Turkey initiative — have started submitting their reports to the speaker of Parliament. But both the governing bloc and the opposition appear far from agreeing on a common “solution law.”
In Turkish, rüzgâr begins as a simple meteorological fact: the wind that sweeps across the Bosphorus, bends Aegean olive trees and makes wildfires spread uncontrollably. Etymologically, it probably blows in from Persian, once meaning “time, fate, weather,” before narrowing into “wind.” But its real life is in metaphor: the wind that shifts fortune, tests patience, topples governments. In a language where song lyricists routinely confide in the breeze, it was only a matter of time before politicians started doing the same.
Sözcü TV, which began broadcasting on March 1, 2023, has undergone a major management overhaul that resulted in a wave of layoffs and raised questions about a broader editorial shift at one of Turkey’s key opposition channels.