Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
On Jan. 20, 1921, as the War of Independence was still being fought, the Grand National Assembly adopted a Constitution whose first article began: Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation (Hâkimiyet bilâ kaydü şart milletindir). On Oct. 29, 1923, the assembly added another sentence to that same article: The form of government of the Turkish state is the Republic (Türkiye Devletinin şekl-i hükûmeti Cumhuriyettir).
When Keriman Halis, a 19-year-old of Circassian descent, won the title of Miss Turkey in 1932, she became the punching bag of some of the media. Surely, wrote several columnists, this girl with the round face and jutting eyebrows had only been chosen because her father, a musician, was on friendly terms with the members of the jury, the writers, composers, and the intellectuals handpicked by the daily Cumhuriyet, which used to organize the pageant back then.
ASSAN, one of Turkey’s top private-sector ammunition producers and an exporter to more than 60 countries, is under scrutiny following allegations of illegal staffing, supply delays, fraud, and improper transfer of state-developed defense technologies, according to Cumhuriyet daily.