Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
The word of the week is vibratör (vibrator), because Turkey has reached that stage of public life where even a small vibrating object of adult pleasure may require a prosecutor’s attention. Here, a vibrator is not merely a device; it is a small object with the bad manners to expose the size of the state.
Turkey's nationalist opposition parties escalated their criticism of the framework law that is expected to regulate the return of PKK members, rebuking the government for showing the draft to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan before parliament or the public.
Amid the noise and turmoil within the CHP, it did not attract much public attention, but traffic around the Kurdish Peace Process has intensified in recent days. A DEM delegation traveled to İmralı and returned with a message from Abdullah Öcalan.
Turkey spent 5.5 times more on interest payments than on public investment in the first half of the year, as debt servicing became the single largest item in a budget that ran a deficit of nearly 1 trillion liras.
Unwilling to risk the Republicans losing their representative power, Ankara has accelerated its efforts to push the US to lift its arms embargo.
Turkish authorities detained popular comedian Deniz Göktaş, 32, at an Istanbul airport following an intense wave of public targeting from pro-government figures over his viral stand-up special.
A rift within the ruling AKP divulged to public view after Tamar Tanrıyar — a social media phenomenon, a Turkish-Armenian known mainly as the wife of a former celebrity journalist and the owner of a small television channel — released a video targeting pro-government Turkuvaz Media Group that owns Sabah newspaper and ATV television channel.
Three retired Turkish diplomats have publicly voiced their support for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of the country's parliamentary elections scheduled for early June, following a joint visit to Yerevan.
All deaths are tragic. They touch a family, a circle of friends, a silence suddenly too large for the room. But some deaths pass beyond the private wound and enter the deeper chambers of public life. They reveal the loss not only of a person, but of a habit of mind, a manner of thinking, a discipline of attention, a way of teaching a society to recognise itself. The death of Professor İlber Ortaylı feels like that kind of loss.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Orhan Pamuk. “The Museum of Innocence.” A television series. With its release, months later, the public agenda shifted. Justice, legal troubles, and the deepening, ever more painful economic crisis were suddenly pushed aside. This series — along with the book of the same name and its author, Orhan Pamuk — took center stage, especially on social media.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in Ankara, but his visit was kept off the public schedule until the last minute.
An investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office into alleged drug use and prostitution involving celebrities has widened to include Istanbul Municipality and its jailed mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, following media reports referring to secret hotel rooms, gambling, private parties and jet travel.