Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his three-day Gulf tour, which includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, will focus on economic cooperation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Jeddah on Monday, embarking upon his first regional tour after his reelection last May as Ankara scrambles to …
Read More »Turkey’s EU Bid: Back From The Dead? – OpEd
On July 10th, 2023, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country would support Sweden’s accession bid to NATO on the condition that EU accession talks are unfrozen. Within 24 hours however, Erdogan apparently signed off on a new deal that would drop Turkey’s veto over Sweden and allow …
Read More »Turkey’s President Received By Saudi Crown Prince In Jeddah
Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Jeddah on Monday on the first leg of a three-state Gulf tour with business and investment at the top of the agenda. The Turkish president is leading a massive delegation of government ministers and officials, and about 200 business leaders, investors and company owners. He …
Read More »Oil, politics, and sovereignty: The Iraq-Turkiye legal dispute
Despite Turkiye’s professed support for Iraq’s sovereignty, its actions, including nine years of illegal oil imports from Kurdistan, reveal quite the opposite, with the repercussions now affecting global oil supply. In a joint press conference held in 2019 at Turkiye’s Presidential Complex in Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his …
Read More »NATO Summit Produces Signs Of A Sea Change For Turkey – OpEd
At the NATO Summit that was held last week in Vilnius, the capital of the Baltic state of Lithuania, the agenda was dominated by the Ukraine war and Sweden’s bid to join the alliance. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan surprised NATO by announcing before his departure for Vilnius that he …
Read More »Turkey And Erdogan On The Rise After NATO Summit – Analysis
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s leaders gathered this week for a major summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Of course, the main focus was on Ukraine, and a new NATO-Ukraine Council was established to help boost cooperation. The alliance also agreed that Ukraine will someday join the club. To the disappointment of …
Read More »What’s behind Erdogan’s backing of Sweden’s NATO bid?
The wait is (nearly) over. After more than a year of ups and downs since Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has agreed to back Stockholm’s bid to become the Alliance’s thirty-second member. The announcement came on the eve of the NATO Summit …
Read More »Is Erdoğan Hoping to Bring 84 Million Turks into Europe?
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan talks about an “evil West” but wants to become part of it — perhaps to “improve” it? Erdoğan needs money. He needs it now, and preferably from Western markets instead of one-off cash injections from Russia and friendly Gulf states. Erdoğan aims to… [k]eep within …
Read More »Turkey’s Erdogan anticipates ‘serious investments’ from Gulf ahead of visit
Ahead of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Gulf tour which will include Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, Ankara is working to maximize economic cooperation with regional states in a bid to ease its foreign currency crunch. Speaking ahead of his Gulf tour on that starts on Monday, Turkish President …
Read More »Erdogan’s NATO moves agitate Russia but don’t spell Turkey’s sharp shift to West
The Turkish leader is navigating Ankara’s relationships in ways that he believes best benefit Turkey’s interests and above all his own political survival. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “U-turn” on Sweden’s accession to NATO during the alliance summit in Vilnius has prompted a flurry of Western commentary on how Turkey …
Read More »