Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Parliament approved legislation raising the minimum monthly pension to 20,000 lira ($460), an 18.4% increase, with effect from January. The bill, benefiting about 4.9 million retirees, was adopted by the Parliament with the support of the MHP lawmakers amid barbed debate.
Pope Leo XIV, spiritual leader of 1.5 billion Catholics, is making his first overseas trip to Turkey since his May inauguration. The visit, which began Nov. 27 in Ankara, will continue through Nov. 30. The Pope’s trip aims to commemorate a key Christian anniversary and send a message of peace amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine and ease tensions in the Middle East.
The Revenue Administration has announced the top income taxpayers in 2024, with most names once again kept confidential. For the fourth year in a row, Baykar Chair of the Board Selçuk Bayraktar, who is also President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law, ranked first, paying 2.77 billion lira in income tax.
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…
The central bank spent approximately $23.5 billion in foreign exchange interventions during the first two weeks of the Iran war to defend the Turkish lira.
The Family and Social Services Ministry has finalized a draft bill that would impose a ban on social media use for children under the age of 15.
A new U.S. tariff move targeting countries that do business with Iran is placing billions of dollars of Turkey’s trade at risk, with exports to the United States and energy trade with Iran most exposed.
A new political dispute has erupted after AKP’s Istanbul branch began running ads on billboards criticizing the Istanbul Municipality, giving the impression that an election campaign is already underway.
Under the agreement signed between Turkey and the U.K., the £5.4 billion payment to the Eurofighter consortium for 20 Typhoon fighter jets was not included in either the Defense Ministry’s budget or the Defense Industry Presidency's (SSB) budget. The Defense Industry Support Fund (SSDF) can be used as a source of funding for this project, but the cost of the Typhoons is approximately double the annual amount transferred to the fund from taxes collected by the state.
The Defense Ministry’s budget, 623.9 billion lira in 2025, is set to increase 31.9% to 822.9 billion lira in 2026, according to figures released during parliamentary budget talks Nov. 26. This allocation does not cover Turkey’s latest procurement of Eurofighters.
The ruling AKP submitted its 11th Judicial Package to Parliament, reviving a pandemic-era execution rule that could lead to the release of up to 115,000 inmates. The clause concerning juvenile offenders was removed from the final draft. Although the bill originally included prison sentences for LGBT+, this was also dismissed.
The financial crisis facing companies in Turkey is deepening as the amount of non-performing loans from banks exceeded 519 billion lira as of the week of Oct. 24. In the January-October period of 2025, the number of companies granted a temporary moratorium on debt repayment rose to 2,326, a 72% increase year on year.