Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
Friedrich Merz’s visit to Ankara marks a new phase in German-Turkish relations — the trip served domestic power dynamics in Berlin in political terms rather than through concrete agreements. The chancellor did not come because Turkey has fundamentally changed, but because Germany finds itself in deep economic and political uncertainty. By Ozan Demircan
An Ankara court on Sept. 11 overturned the ruling that appointed an interim committee to run the main opposition party’s Istanbul branch. According to the CHP, the decision from the Ankara 3rd Civil Court of First Instance effectively nullified the earlier ruling of the Istanbul 45th Civil Court, in line with CHP’s argument that only an Ankara court can rule since the party’s headquarters are in Ankara. Yet, the decision can be appealed in a higher court.
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.
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.
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…
Thirteen months after sentencing, the Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court has released its reasoned verdict in the high-profile Kobani trial, in which former HDP Co-Chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ were sentenced to 42 and 30 years in prison, respectively.
A city’s cultural field does not stop at its administrative boundary. If Ankara reveals itself in layers, some of its most telling ones begin once the city has thinned into road, valley and plateau.
Ankara is often described by those who do not know it well as a grey city. This is unfair, though not entirely mysterious. A city that must constantly perform seriousness is rarely forgiven for having charm. Yet Ankara’s charm is real. It is private, reveals itself slowly, and almost always just outside the official frame. It is a city of dry light, hard hills, old stones, republican geometry, Ottoman shadows, Roman fragments, Seljuk craft and streets that remember more than they are prepared to explain. This is why Ankara deserves a cultural diplomacy route, a way of showing visitors not only what the city proudly displays, but also what it half-remembers, neglects, misnames, hides or leaves to survive behind other buildings.
Turkey wants NATO to address threats from all directions — including from Middle Eastern countries — during the Ankara Summit on July 7-8. 'We are reminded that what happens in the south does not stay in the south,' said Ambassador Mehmet Burçin Gönenli, director general for International Security Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, speaking at the 18th Istanbul Security Conference organized by Başkent University and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
Queen Mathilde is leading the Belgian Economic Mission to Turkey to bolster bilateral ties — but she will not be traveling to the capital, Ankara.
Journalist Deniz Zeyrek writes about a closed-door briefing organized by AKP's media and communications chief Faruk Acar, at which Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke to senior editors and Ankara bureau chiefs from pro-government outlets about Turkey's foreign policy. Zeyrek identifies three problems with the meeting.
A district governor in Ankara has been surprisingly reassigned following his religious references, political posturing against CHP members, and social media arguments. Meanwhile, the President of the Constitutional Court addressed jurists with similar religious references while he was demanding they ensure justice through religious frameworks.