Ahmet Davutoğlu

May 4, 2023 | Sinan Ciddi |

Is Turkey Getting Tough On Terrorism?

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently announced that Turkish forces had successfully neutralized the current leader of the Islamic State (IS), Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi following a raid on...

September 30, 2021 | Aykan Erdemir |

Spectacles of Tolerance: The Precarity of Turkey’s Religious Minorities in the Era of Neo-Ottoman Delusions

Excerpt Turkey watchers continue to debate whether neo-Ottomanism, an ideological proclivity to exalt and revive an imagined Ottoman past and its traditions of religio-political authority and domination,...

October 1, 2020 | Philip Kowalski |

Turkey Uses Medieval Score-Settling To Justify Its Hagia Sophia Conversion

Europe is now home to one of the world’s strangest paradoxes. The continent’s most prominent mosque, the Great Mosque of Cordoba, has served as a church since the year 1236. Meanwhile, Ankara in July converted Europe’s...

July 10, 2020 | Aykan Erdemir |

COVID-19 and Erdogan’s Power Consolidation

Since the rise to power of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002, its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used successive crises as pretexts to consolidate power that has...

January 20, 2020 | Aykan Erdemir |

Turkey’s elite unsure whether Soleimani was hero or war criminal

Underscoring the absence of any clear position, Erdogan’s spokesperson called on all sides to act with “common sense,” and the Turkish Foreign Ministry invited “restraint and discretion.”

October 20, 2019 | Aykan Erdemir |

Turkey’s Syria campaign serves Erdogan’s electoral ambitions

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presents his latest cross-border operation into northeast Syria as a move against “oppressors and terrorists.” He also claims that he “targets not the Syrian...

October 12, 2018 | Aykan Erdemir, John Lechner

Khashoggi Crisis Holds a Mirror to Turkey

Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi has gone missing after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Turkish government alleges...

November 9, 2017 | Aykan Erdemir, Merve Tahiroglu

Turkey’s Premier Visits Washington

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is in Washington this week...

July 19, 2016 | Aykan Erdemir |

Turkey needs a new social contract

A decade ago, Turkey was hailed as a success story due to its booming economy, proactive foreign policy and progress toward EU membership. Today the country is making headlines for different reas...

June 16, 2016 | John Hannah |

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Erdogan?

Houston, we have a problem. A serious problem. Slowly, but inexorably, Turkey is headed off a cliff. The signposts ahead are bleak indeed. Despotism. Terrorism. Civil war. Just over the horizon,...

May 5, 2016 | Aykan Erdemir |

Turkish Prime Minister Falls Victim to Palace Coup

After a week of open strife within the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erd...

March 7, 2016 | Merve Tahiroglu |

With Iran Visit, Turkish PM Hopes to Preserve Tenuous Status Quo

Turkish premier Ahmet Davutoglu paid his first official visit to Iran as prime minister this weekend. Following his meeting with Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, news reports...

February 18, 2016 | Jonathan Schanzer, Aykan Erdemir

Turkey just received a huge ‘political gift’

but its opponents are warning it could lead to a ‘big war'

January 26, 2016 | Jonathan Schanzer, Merve Tahiroglu

Ankara’s Failure

Makalenin Türkçe çevirisini buradan okuyabilirsiniz. When ...

November 2, 2015 | Aykan Erdemir |

6 Takeaways From the Turkish Elections

 After losing their single-party majority for the first time in 12 years, the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned to power after a five-month intermission. Turkey&rs...

October 6, 2015 | Merve Tahiroglu |

Russian Forays Into Turkish Airspace Challenge Ankara’s Syria Policy… And NATO

Russian warplanes entered Turkish airspace from Syria twice over the weekend,...

September 21, 2015 | John Hannah |

Erdogan’s Deadly Ambitions

We break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this disturbing news: Turkey, a vital NATO ally, is teetering on the brink of civil war. Dormant for more than two years thanks to a...

September 2, 2015 | Aykan Erdemir, Merve Tahiroglu

Kurds Mark Milestone by Joining Turkish Cabinet

The suspension of Turkey’s ceasefire with Kurdish fighters in July, followed by airstrikes against Kurdish militant targets in Turkey and Iraq, have brought the greatest rupture in Turkish-...

April 7, 2015 | Merve Tahiroglu |

Sultan of Turkey: Erdogan’s Shameless Power Play

Co-authored by Gabriel Mitchell A row erupted within Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on March 21, after the deputy prime minister brazenly condemned Pr...

January 20, 2015 | Jonathan Schanzer Cited by Steven Cook - Defense One |

How Turkey Can Improve Its Relations With the West

... 5. The AKP’s support for Hamas—As I have written before, and as Jonathan Schanzer and David Weinberg have exposed more recently, the AKP has a blind spot for Hamas,...