Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli has called for an alliance between Turkey, Russia, and China (abbreviated as TRÇ in Turkish) to counter what he described as the 'evil coalition' of the United States and Israel, which he said was 'challenging the world.'
The 11th session of Turkey’s parliamentary commission on the Kurdish peace process saw its first major confrontation, as comments made by a representative of the İslami Tebliğ Tedris İlim Hareketi Adamları Association (İTTİHAD) prompted a dramatic walkout by members of the DEM Party. The controversy began when Mehmet Beşir Şimşek, a senior figure in İTTİHAD, addressed the commission on Sept. 18. The group is widely known for its ideological ties to Turkish Hizbullah, which was linked to a series of extrajudicial killings in the 1990s, many involving victims bound and executed using the notorious “pig-tie” method.
Soon after Israel launched a major ground offensive in Gaza City, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for an unofficial visit in the Turkish capital.
Gürsel Tekin is the child of a family that migrated to Istanbul immediately after the 1980 military coup that turned Turkey upside down. The family’s roots lie in the province that was then called Kars, now Ardahan—a region where leftist and socialist movements were strong before the coup.
When I say Turkey is a European power, pro-government pundits often react with visible discomfort. Yet, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s message on European security is a testament to Turkey’s geostrategic positioning as a European power.
Access to Grok, the artificial intelligence bot on the X platform owned by Elon Musk, has been blocked.
Turkish Aerospace Industries’ (TAI) jet trainer aircraft Hürjet has passed another milestone in the certification process by obtaining the Design Organization Approval (DOA) and Production Organization Approval (POA) certificates, Haluk Görgün, head of Defense Industries, announced on Sept. 10.
Zafer Party Chair Ümit Özdağ's trial on charges of insulting the president has been postponed until Dec. 24.
DEM Party Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit has renewed her party’s call for the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission to visit imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island.
Turkey’s main opposition party, the CHP, is set to hold an extraordinary congress on Sept. 21, after more than 900 delegates submitted signatures to Ankara’s Çankaya District Election Board on September 5. The move comes amid a growing legal standoff that has rocked the party’s Istanbul branch. Among the signatories, the 196 Istanbul delegates suspended by court order were not included.
Here at the tail end of the tourist season, the word of the week writes itself: konukseverlik, hospitality, or, in its Ottoman-tinted oldspeak, misafirperverlik. Every guidebook swears Turks are preternaturally welcoming; the national branding machine isn’t shy about it either. Yet while “hospitality” is the country’s trusty calling card, the numbers are more than brochure copy. Turkey received 23.6 million foreign visitors in the first half of 2025, marking an increase of 15.9% year-on-year, as tourism revenues hit a record $24.6 billion. By July, official arrivals had topped 31.2 million, the second-highest January–July tally on record.
September was expected to be tough for the CHP due to ongoing investigations and trials—but no one expected a storm of this magnitude. Having fought operations targeting its municipalities for the past nine months, the CHP is now shaken by the court decision that appointed a “trustee” to its Istanbul congress. CHP members, calling this a “new judicial coup,” saw the move as the extension of operations against municipalities into the party itself. Speculation has grown that a trustee could also be appointed to the party headquarters in the coming days.