Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
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.
The German government has dropped its veto on the sale of 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Turkey, thanks to the requests of the Turkish opposition, claimed Özgür Özel, the head of the CHP. While Berlin has been dragging its feet on talks for the warplanes, which are built by a consortium of Germany, Britain, Italy, and Spain, a news report suggested in April that the German government had decided to keep blocking the sale due to the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 19. While such a decision was never officially confirmed, İmamoğlu tweeted from his prison cell, objecting to the veto and Özel kept the issue on the agenda during talks with his German counterparts.
In a symbolic act seen by many as the first step toward a “terror-free Turkey,” a 30-member group affiliated with the PKK ceremonially burned their weapons and gear in front of a fire sacred to Kurds, initiating a process expected to proceed through mutual steps. In response, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş invited political party representatives to a July 18 meeting to discuss forming a parliamentary commission tasked with drafting the legal framework for this new peace initiative.
As the crackdown on CHP municipalities deepened with the detention of even private drivers, the party has remained defiant—pressing forward with rallies, contesting disinformation, visiting imprisoned members, and calling for early elections, which it frames as a fight against a “civilian coup.”
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 financial crimes police raided Şile Municipality on July 10, detaining Mayor Özgür Kabadayı as part of the widening corruption investigations targeting CHP-run municipalities. It was yet another ordinary day for the main opposition, which has been facing near-daily legal turmoil since Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained on March 19. CHP Istanbul Chair Özgür Çelik said Kabadayı and several others were detained in house raids at 1:30 a.m. Arrest warrants were issued for at least six individuals, said the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Turkey's inflation and high cost of living show no sign of easing. A new Central Bank survey points to rising price expectations — coming just days after the bank officially revised its own forecasts upward.
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek warned investors to expect a worsening in the country’s current account and the central bank said it expects faster inflation as strain grows on the government’s economic plans.
Conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz and the naval warfare in the Black Sea have underscored the critical importance of mine countermeasures.
The reopening of a six-year-old cold case involving a missing university student has reignited the main opposition’s anger towards Justice Minister Akın Gürlek, as the recent reports show then–Tunceli governor Tuncay Sonel played a critical role in covering up the case of the missing young woman Gülistan Doku.
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.
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.