Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
At Ankara Bar Association No. 2, President Gökhan Ağdemir withdrew his candidacy for reelection after boasting that his bar had helped 70 of its members become judges and prosecutors. At Istanbul Bar Association No. 2, the candidate backed by AKP and MHP groups lost the presidency by six votes.
Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT) chief İbrahim Kalın made a visit to Athens on Aug. 28, meeting his Greek counterpart Themistoklis Demiris, head of the National Intelligence Service (EYP), at its headquarters, and the trip was publicized to media with a week delay, as a rare example.
As the countdown to early or on-schedule elections picks up pace, transfers of lawmakers and mayors are happening at an astonishing pace. Among them, Istanbul MP Nimet Özdemir stands out. Özdemir won her parliamentary seat for the first time in 2023 — under the İYİ Party banner.
The parliamentary commission formed to pave the way for a new Kurdish peace process remains stuck over whether its members should visit jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. A planned session of the commission has been postponed once again, even as hopes rise for the release of imprisoned Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş following a third ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
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
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.
In the March 8 election in Baden-Württemberg, Green Party candidate Cem Özdemir came first, edging out the CDU, if only narrowly. So far, so unremarkable. The state has, after all, been governed by the Greens since 2011. But the picture changes when the victor, under the Green banner, is Cem Özdemir.
Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair of the HDP, has been sentenced to one year, five months and 15 days in prison over speeches he delivered in 2015–2016 despite a final and binding European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling calling for his release.
A war of words broke out in the pro-government media, as prominent figures from the Demirören Group, which owns Hürriyet and CNN Türk, started questioning why they have been speaking on behalf of the ruling AKP.
A new case has been opened against former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş on charges of insulting the president, days after the European Court of Human Rights upheld its ruling that he should be released.
Jailed former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş rejected remarks by former Parliament Speaker Bülent Arınç suggesting Demirtaş wished to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and tell him he held no resentment. After a visit to Edirne Prison, Arınç said Demirtaş wanted to tell Erdoğan, “I hold no grudge against you.” Demirtaş responded with a handwritten note, saying he never expressed such a thought. “What troubles me most is being associated with words and ideas I never hinted at,” he wrote.
Selahattin Demirtaş has long been more than a defendant; he is a barometer of how politics manages law, another act in a long-running political drama in Turkey. This is not a scripted series that keeps millions guessing on Thursday nights; it is a real-world production about the country’s future.