NO INTEREST RATE CUTS WITHOUT INFLATION UNDER CONTROL
Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan said interest rate cuts can only be effective when inflation is under control.
Analysis
In-Depth Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
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.
OPPOSITION NATIONALISTS: PROSPECT OF A COMMON FRONT
Is cooperation among nationalist parties possible? What are the prospects and obstacles? Turkish politics has been polarized into two main blocs since the transition to the presidential system: the AKP on one side and the CHP on the other. While the AKP kept parties like the MHP, BBP, and HÜDA-Par in its orbit, the CHP advanced by forging open or tacit alliances with the DEM Party and İYİ Party. But this opposition front collapsed after the defeat in the 2023 elections.
SELÇUK BAYRAKTAR AGAIN TURKEY'S TOP TAXPAYER
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.
TRİP YAPMAK
With TRIPP, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, dominating global headlines, it feels only right to turn our gaze to its Turkish near-homonym: trip atmak or trip yapmak. No, this is not another geopolitical acronym. In Turkish slang, trip is a native borrowing of English, stripped of tourist connotations and recast to mean sulky attitude. (Do watch the TikTok video for a full explanation) You can atmak (“throw”) a trip, a sudden sulk, or yapmak (“make”) one, meaning a longer, more orchestrated performance with a few dismissive or harsh words thrown in. Both have elbowed aside the more traditional surat asmak (“to pout”).
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.
WHITE TOROS ARSON HITS PARLIAMENT GATE AS COMMISSION HEARS VICTIMS’ MOTHERS
Hours before parliament’s “National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission” was to listen to the views of mothers whose children were lost to PKK or state violence, a white Renault 12 Toros — long remembered as a symbol of Turkey’s unsolved killings in the 1990s — was set on fire at Parliament’s Çankaya gate.
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.
TURKEY-CHINA RELATIONS: INEVITABLE TANGO
Although NATO remains the cornerstone of Turkey’s security architecture and the European Union still accounts for roughly half of its foreign trade, Ankara’s relationship with Beijing has become increasingly complex, strategic, and — in many respects — inevitable.
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.