Turkey

Opposition head Kemal Kilicdaroglu accuses Turkish government of “mafialike” activities. The leader of Turkey’s secular main opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, delivered an Oct. 18 deadline over the weekend to members of Turkey’s sprawling bureaucracy. They needed to stop engaging in illegal, “mafialike” activities. If they ignored his calls, they would not …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a monumental vision for his country’s largest city: building a new mega canal through Istanbul. Of course, Istanbul is already home to the Bosporus Strait, whose bisection of Europe and Asia has been fought over in numerous wars throughout history and inspired numerous cliches. …

Ayse Ozdogan, an imprisoned end-stage cancer patient, has been denied release, despite a recommendation by a government-run hospital. A well-known saying of the Prophet Mohammed intones, “Allah has no mercy for him who has no mercy for his fellows.” It appears to be lost on Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development …

Erdogan’s revisionist foreign policy looks squeezed between the Eastern Mediterranean anvil and the Syrian hammer. Despite the longstanding alliance and close military partnership between Turkey and the United States, the relationship has always been troublesome. For some time now, pundits and Turkey experts have tended to speculate on “who lost …

Just last week Erdogan boasted about potential new defense deals with Russia, including aircraft purchases. Turkey has requested to purchase 40 US-made F-16 fighter jets and dozens of modernization kits for aircraft it already owns, according to reports in both the Greek and the Turkish press. News of the request, …

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the nation “would do what is necessary” to clear Syrian border areas of Kurdish militants after missile attacks killed two Turkish police officers Sunday. Two years since its last Syria incursion, Ankara is hinting at a new cross-border military operation in response to a …

Turkish intelligence helped Iraq capture a senior Islamic State leader who had been hiding out in northwestern Syria, three security sources said on Tuesday, in an operation that points to closer cooperation against remnants of the jihadist group. Iraq announced on Monday that its security forces had captured Sami Jasim, …

Police raids on the unregulated recycling sector are targeting some of the poorest members of Turkish society, including undocumented refugees with few other options to survive. Hundreds of informal recycling workers in Istanbul have been detained and many face deportation after recent police raids that critics say target migrants in …

Turkish-backed Syrian opposition factions have reportedly received instructions to deploy in Idlib soon, amid reports that a merger with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is imminent. Syrian opposition media sources are reporting that the Syrian National Army (SNA) affiliated with the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) will be widely deployed in the …

Talks on the sale of Turkish armed drones and combat helicopters to Iraq have hit snags amid Iraqi efforts to extract concessions on contentious issues in bilateral ties. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been eager to boost military sales to foreign buyers, but his foreign policy often snags his …