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).
Armenia will host its 35th Independence Day reception in Istanbul on Oct. 14. The event marks a rare diplomatic event in Turkey as the two neighbors work to normalize long-strained ties.
Joel Lion, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi and close associate of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, presented his credentials in Ankara on Sept. 9 and left the same day after attending a US Independence Day reception.
Education Minister Yusuf Tekin, no stranger to controversy, has provoked a backlash after announcing a change to the newly updated national school curriculum that renames the War of Independence.
The great poet Nâzım Hikmet begins his epic poem The Epic of the War of Independence with the line, “We have seen fire and betrayal.” Ahmet Türk has stood at the very heart of politics for fifty years—right in the midst of what could only be called a political firestorm. What he has witnessed is a story of Turkey and the painful fortune of these lands.