Barely a week after US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had asked Turkey’s leaders in Ankara to open the Turkish-Armenian border, Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan has thwarted that effort by issuing an irredentist-sounding statement to youth (“Armenian President Casts Doubt On Ongoing Negotiating Processes,” EDM,... MORE

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a one-day working visit to Baku, where he met the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to discuss various bilateral and regional issues. Erdogan deliberately chose Baku as the destination for his second official trip abroad, since he formed his... MORE

Turkey has hosted an important meeting, which marked the drastic transformation its policy on Libya has undergone. Although Turkey initially expressed strong opposition to military intervention against the Gaddafi regime, over time it adjusted its policy and managed to coordinate it with Western powers and... MORE

Turkish security forces did not wait for the June 15 deadline set by Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK – Kurdistan Workers’ Party), to make his decision on extending the PKK’s unilateral “non-attack” ceasefire. On June 14, hundreds of Turkish... MORE

Following the parliamentary elections on June 12 in the wake of a heated election campaign, Turkish politics remains unsettled. While the sweeping victory of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominated the discussions initially, attention has shifted to Turkey’s sharp political intrigues and political crises... MORE

As the momentum of opposition demonstrations targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gains in the face of an increasingly violent crackdown by the state, questions are emerging as to the survivability of a regime widely considered to be among the most autocratic in the region.  Like... MORE

The 10th International Defense Industry Fair (IDEF), held in Istanbul on May 10 – 13, was an important venue to demonstrate the transformation of the Turkish defense industry in recent years. Organized biannually since the 1990s, the event featured over 600 companies or company representatives... MORE

The Turkish-Israeli relationship has been in a limbo since the deadly Mavi Marmara incident in late May 2010, and various efforts to bridge the differences have failed (EDM, July 7, December 10, 2010). The approaching anniversary of the flotilla incident has reignited the debate on... MORE

As Turkey prepares for the parliamentary elections slated for June12, tension in the country has intensified. The decision by the Supreme Election Board (YSK), to bar many pro-Kurdish independent candidates which have sparked a major political debate as well as street demonstrations, underscoring the challenges... MORE

As the debate on the NATO-led military operations in Libya intensifies, Turkey continues to hold a key position in alternative scenarios for the future of Libya. In the aftermath of the contact group meeting in Doha, which failed to strengthen the military option, Turkey’s approach... MORE