NOD FROM EASTERN LIBYA SETS OFF MEDITERRANEAN TRAFFIC
Libya's eastern-based parliament has ratified the maritime deal with Ankara, rebalancing alliances across the Eastern Mediterranean.
Analysis
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Libya's eastern-based parliament has ratified the maritime deal with Ankara, rebalancing alliances across the Eastern Mediterranean.
Ankara doesn't consider itself obliged to join combat, since Mecca Pact is not an alliance aimed at resolving the historical issues of its members.
Turkey is working to have the MJWC in Istanbul fully accredited by NATO and hosted an activity of the Alliance to advance the project.
Soon after Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan announceda mutual defence pact, the Houthis stepped up their attacks, testing the new alliance.
The first cooperation between members of the CHP and the People's Alliance took place in Ankara's Etimesgut municipal elections.
The DEM Party is intensifying pressure on the AKP/MHP ruling alliance to pass the framework law underpinning Turkey's Kurdish peace process before parliament enters for its summer recess — even as the party struggles to extract details of the draft from the AKP. The push has produced a flurry of contacts. İmralı Delegation members Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, together with Faik Özgür Erol, met AKP Deputy Chair Efkan Ala and AKP Group Chair Abdullah Güler on July 15, and MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli at his office in parliament the following day. Asked about the talks, Buldan declined to elaborate: 'We will not give information on the content.'
The upcoming NATO Summit in Ankara, scheduled for July 7-8 at the Beştepe Presidential Complex, arrives at a moment of growing tension within the alliance driven largely by the Trump administration’s transactional approach to collective defense.
With uncertainty surrounding whether US President Donald Trump will attend the alliance summit in Ankara, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte arrived in the capital to discuss preparations.
Efforts by conservative and right-wing parties to build a “third way” outside the ruling and main opposition blocs are gaining momentum, as Saadet Party and YRP — both rooted in Turkey’s first political Islamist tradition, the National View (Milli Görüş) shaped by Necmettin Erbakan — step up talks on election cooperation. The renewed contacts signal a shift in relations between the two parties, which had previously been at odds over the movement’s legacy following the founding of YRP in 2018. This time, the talks focus on bringing together Saadet Party, YRP, Gelecek Party and DEVA Party under a common framework, with a broader alliance that could also include the İYİ Party.
Is cooperation among nationalist parties possible? What are the prospects and obstacles? Turkish politics has been polarized into two main blocs since the transition to the presidential system: the AKP on one side and the CHP on the other. While the AKP kept parties like the MHP, BBP, and HÜDA-Par in its orbit, the CHP advanced by forging open or tacit alliances with the DEM Party and İYİ Party. But this opposition front collapsed after the defeat in the 2023 elections.
The MHP, a key partner of the ruling alliance under the leadership of the AKP, has seen a new wave of internal restructuring as the party leadership dissolved multiple regional organizations following the high-profile departure of Deputy Chair İzzet Ulvi Yönter.
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.