Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Turkey launched offshore oil and gas exploration off the eastern coast of Africa, deploying a 7th-generation ultra-deepwater drillship. Simultaneously, Turkish F-16 fighter jets, T-129 attack helicopters, and AS-532 Cougar utility helicopters, and the aircraft performed ceremonial flyovers across Mogadishu.
The TAF is participating in a US-led military exercise in Libya, where Turkey backed the Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west during the civil war. Meanwhile, attention has again focused on the plane crash in which the GNA Chief of Staff Muhammed Ali Ahmed Al Haddad and his delegation died near Ankara on Dec. 23, 2025.
Hungary’s parliamentary elections on April 12 — described as the toughest test of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year rule — will be closely watched not only in Europe but also in Turkey by both the AKP and the opposition.
Turkish comedian Tuba Ulu has been detained after a clip from one of her stand-up shows went viral on social media.
Journalist Yılmaz Özdil has stepped down from his position as head of the Sözcü Media Group — which encompasses SZC TV and the Sözcü and Korkusuz newspapers — after just four months in the role. Özdil also resigned from his column at the Sözcü newspaper.
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.
Three seemingly separate stories — a party purge, a criminal network, and a political assassination — are converging into a single story with the ruling alliance partner MHP at its heart.
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?'
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.