Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli at the presidential complex in Ankara on April 30 for a closed-door meeting lasting approximately one hour. It was only the second face-to-face encounter between the two coalition partners this year — their previous meeting took place on Jan. 21— and the first in over three months.
Despite weeks of public speculation, four senior diplomats based in Ankara tell Turkey in Depth that the question of US President Donald Trump's non-attendance of the NATO summit is off the table and preparations are well underway.
The US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack is under attack in Turkey and the United States for saying Middle East countries require “strong leadership.”
When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen listed Turkey alongside the bloc's strategic rivals, both Brussels and Ankara moved quickly to contain the fallout.
Ankara’s signal that its “institutionalized good relations” with Hungary will continue even as the Turkish opposition congratulated Magyar as observers draw parallels between Orbán’s rule and Erdoğan’s.
Amid uncertainty surrounding ceasefire talks between the United States and Iran, Ankara has accelerated its steps to rebuild regional security.
The sixth week of the mass corruption trial of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and more than 400 co-defendants produced some of its most dramatic courtroom exchanges. İmamoğlu and the presiding judge continued sharp exchanges while the municipality’s housing company, KİPTAŞ, chair Ali Kurt implicated senior government figures in a land scheme, and the European Court of Human Rights formally demanded answers from Ankara.
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.
An Istanbul court accepted an indictment against DW Turkish correspondent Alican Uludağ, ruled it had no jurisdiction over the case, and then transferred the file to Ankara.
While Ankara is seeking to strengthen its ties with the Washington administration, U.S. Ambassador to Ankara and Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack has dusted off an old project aimed at transforming Turkey and Syria into a hub for energy security as an alternative to the Persian Gulf, caught in the crossfire for a month.
Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar denied media reports that Iran stopped natural gas exports to Turkey following an Israeli military strike on the South Pars gas field on March 18.