Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Ankara is happy to see the two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran as a significant first step, but worries it may not hold. The central fear focuses on Israel, which stayed silent through the night of negotiations only to issue a statement on Lebanon afterward.
No legal steps have been taken despite calls across the spectrum for progress in the Kurdish peace process. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli both called for momentum, and the DEM Party co-chair Bakırhan turned the question back on the government: 'Who exactly are they talking to?'
A series of legal operations targeting CHP-run municipalities intensified on April 9 as CHP Chair Özgür Özel repeated calls for a by-election.
The breaking news pointed to an ISIS attack on Israel’s Istanbul Consulate on April 7, but the circumstances surrounding the attack remain hazy.
“The plot of the terror act is amateurish, the implementation is professional,” a terrorism expert told me about the attack that took place in Istanbul on April 7.
The Middle East is no longer simmering — it is boiling over. The genocide being carried out in Gaza, the attacks on the West Bank, the incursion into Syria, and the devastating assault on Lebanon have cemented one uncomfortable truth that much of the world is now willing to state openly: Israel has become the primary driver of instability in the region.
'First the Bread Went Bad.' This was the first book by man of letters Oktay Akbal, a collection of stories about lives before and after World War II.
“It has been assessed that the life raft, having exited its housing, came into contact with the left tail-fuselage section of the aircraft, causing damage to the aircraft’s horizontal and vertical stabilizers, which may have led to the aircraft’s crash,” a Defense Ministry official said on the C-130 military aircraft that crashed on the Georgia-Azerbaijan border on Nov. 11, 2025.
While Iran is extensively using kamikaze UAVs in its attacks in the conflict with Israeli and US forces, STM (Defense Technologies Engineering and Trade Inc.), announced that it had conducted the first test flight of its new long-range kamikaze UAV.
Turkey's most powerful ballistic missile made its public debut on April 7 — not through an official announcement, but through a presidential photo op at Roketsan's inauguration ceremony, with no details offered to guests or media.
An Istanbul court accepted an indictment against DW Turkish correspondent Alican Uludağ, ruled it had no jurisdiction over the case, and then transferred the file to Ankara.
The excessive use of anti-terror laws came under renewed criticism in Geneva as five United Nations special rapporteurs issued a joint statement urging Turkey to stop criminalizing human rights defenders and lawyers.