ÖZEL PULLS NO PUNCHES ON JUDICIARY
CHP Chair Özgür Özel sharply attacked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç and Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akın Gürlek during a protest over the arrest of Beyoğlu Mayor İnan Güney.
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ÖZEL FIRES BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS ON AKP ANNIVERSARY
CHP Chair Özgür Özel sparked a political storm by accusing a senior AKP figure of bribing a businessperson to testify against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. The CHP leader also suggested that the AKP had used dirty tricks to push CHP Aydın Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu to transfer to the AKP on the 24th anniversary of the ruling party. Just two hours before the AKP’s celebrations, Özel said that former AKP Central Decision and Executive Board member and lawyer Mücahit Birinci asked imprisoned businessperson Murat Kapki to pay $2 million and promised his release in return for signing a false statement.
BALL IS IN PARLIAMENT’S COURT
Turkey’s newly formed National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission—tasked with preparing the framework for the PKK’s disarmament—has held its first meeting thanks to a rare cross-party consensus in parliament. The eight-hour session marked a symbolic start to what could become a historic process.
YAKIŞIR
Some Turkish words are as sharp and clear as a gleam of a knife. Others confuse you. Yakışır is a particular gem in the latter category. Literally, it means “befitting” or “suits well.” But intonation does all the heavy lifting here. With a twinkle in the eye, yakışır becomes high praise: a friend gets a long-deserved promotion? “Yakışır!” A suave female CEO in her sixties starts dating a younger man with abs and ambition? “Yakışır vallahi!” But delivered with a dry brow and pursed lips, the very same yakışır morphs into biting derision, the sort you might lob at a corrupt bureaucrat who gets caught rigging tenders again or the son of one of the president’s close allies landing an ambassadorial job.
UNIVERSITY RENAMES CAMPUS, SPARKS BACKLASH FROM AKP VETERANS
The name of Beşir Atalay, a founding member of the ruling AKP and a former interior minister, has been removed from a university campus in Kırıkkale, causing controversy within the party.
FELAKET TELLALLARI
Before Twitter, there was the tellal: the Ottoman town crier. Walking and shouting past the wooden houses of the empire, he announced fermans (imperial edicts), grain prices, and fresh recruitments for the wars to come. Among these more theatrical criers was the felaket tellalı—literally, “disaster crier.” Think of him as a roaming mashup of breaking news, folk panic, and your neighbourhood uncle who thinks every cloud means war.
ALTAN ÖYMEN: FAREWELL TO THE MAN WITH TWO UMBRELLAS
Altan Öymen passed away this week at the age of 93. Throughout his long life, he always carried two umbrellas—journalism and politics. He journeyed nearly 75 years under both. One could have said “he wore two hats,” but “umbrella” suits Altan Öymen’s life better. A hat is for one person alone; an umbrella is something under which many can take shelter, from the sun and rain. That’s why Öymen chose not hats, but umbrellas. And under his umbrella, there was always room for more than just himself.
FROM FIRE TO LEGAL FRAMEWORK: PARLIAMENT BEGINS PEACE PROCESS TALKS
In a symbolic act seen by many as the first step toward a “terror-free Turkey,” a 30-member group affiliated with the PKK ceremonially burned their weapons and gear in front of a fire sacred to Kurds, initiating a process expected to proceed through mutual steps. In response, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş invited political party representatives to a July 18 meeting to discuss forming a parliamentary commission tasked with drafting the legal framework for this new peace initiative.
YANGIN
I had every intention of writing about düğün/wedding this week. Who could resist, after all, the cinematic absurdity of Jeff Bezos’s Venetian wedding extravaganza? It was the sort of wedding you'd rage over for its sheer insouciance over war, poverty, and environmental concerns: a three-day floating carnival of tuxedoed billionaires, Brazilian butts and a $2,000 bottle of tequila airlifted across continents because, apparently, Venice no longer has liquor stores. The bride wore archival Dolce & Gabbana; Ivanka looked pretty in pink and a German-Turkish Bezos lookalike desperately wanted to meet the couple and present a wedding gift. I was far too ready to bitch about arrogant extravagance and muse on Turkish weddings, those long, loud, gold-pinned affairs where uncles compete in folkloric footwork and everyone pretends the damat's family is not agonizing over the costs…
TURKEY’S INTERNATIONAL LIMELIGHT LASTS FOR A SHORT TIME
The world’s spotlights were turned to Istanbul last week as Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for the first time after three years. The prospect of a potential meeting between the Russian and U.S. leaders in Turkey led to praise for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by some international media outlets.
INDIA AND PAKISTAN: TWO RELATIVES AND A DISTANT COUSIN, TURKEY
The recent terror attack in Kashmir and the subsequent tension between India and Pakistan have returned this decades-old rivalry to the spotlight. Events quickly spiralled into a dangerously charged standoff, with India’s initial reaction—withdrawing from the Indus Water Treaty—drawing a fierce response from Pakistan, which even hinted at the possibility of nuclear retaliation.
STOLEN BEAUTY
When Keriman Halis, a 19-year-old of Circassian descent, won the title of Miss Turkey in 1932, she became the punching bag of some of the media. Surely, wrote several columnists, this girl with the round face and jutting eyebrows had only been chosen because her father, a musician, was on friendly terms with the members of the jury, the writers, composers, and the intellectuals handpicked by the daily Cumhuriyet, which used to organize the pageant back then.