NO DISINFLATION IN SIGHT AS ENERGY COSTS AND EXPECTATIONS SURGE
The government’s efforts to cool down the Turkish economy are falling short as rising energy prices and deteriorating market confidence push inflation targets out of reach.
Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
The government’s efforts to cool down the Turkish economy are falling short as rising energy prices and deteriorating market confidence push inflation targets out of reach.
The war on Iran has once again revealed the confusing complexities of Turkey’s geostrategic positioning as a middle power between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
NATO has launched efforts to establish a second headquarters in Turkey, adding to the alliance’s presence and strengthening its posture against threats from the Middle East.
Few Turkish words arrive with less subtlety than füze. Borrowed from the French fusée, it sounds clipped, metallic and modern. It is a word that pierces a sentence rather than softly enters it, except when used in slang. In the mid-20th century, füze was slang for breasts that projected upward; the opposite of pide, or flat, breasts. It is a small linguistic reminder of how the male gaze has long blended the language of warfare with that of desire.
In the March 8 election in Baden-Württemberg, Green Party candidate Cem Özdemir came first, edging out the CDU, if only narrowly. So far, so unremarkable. The state has, after all, been governed by the Greens since 2011. But the picture changes when the victor, under the Green banner, is Cem Özdemir.
In a historic development for Turkish-American relations, the long-standing legal battle over Iran sanctions involving the Turkish state lender Halkbank has been settled. The U.S. government said the result will curb support for Iran.
After the completion of the Parliamentary Commission report on the Kurdish peace process, legal steps are expected to accelerate after the Ramadan holiday, which ends on March 22 and overlaps with Newroz, the spring festival seen as a symbol of Kurdish identity.
A Turkish company is the main contractor for a project in which the U.S. will provide bombs to Israel, sparking controversy in Turkey.
NATO announced that its assets shot down two ballistic missiles aimed at Turkey in a week, but Iran denied that they had targeted Turkey. Since the Defense Ministry and NATO did not provide information on which region of Iran the ballistic missiles were launched from, the route taken by the missiles and their target became a matter of debate.
Jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has for the first time objected to the possibility of another person becoming the opposition’s presidential candidate.
Parliament will take up legislation in response to the PKK’s decision to dissolve and lay down its arms agenda after the Ramadan holiday. PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has called for the adoption of “peace laws” as a condition for transition. While the DEM Party insists that the legal framework should be adopted before the end of March, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pointed to April, saying he expects the PKK to take more concrete steps.
Jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has for the first time objected to the possibility of another person becoming the opposition’s presidential candidate.