Turkey has poured a lot of money into its indigenous defense industry. To talk about the state of Turkish aerospace, Aaron spoke to Tony Osborne, London Bureau Chief at Aviation Week, about Ankara’s indigenous development programs, spanning unmanned aerial vehicles to 5th generation fighter aircraft. The two also discussed on-going US-Turkish tensi…

The Turkish elections surprised most observers. No one doubted that Recep Tayyip Erdogan would win, but few expected the far right MHP to maintain support and win more than 11% of the vote. What just happened? What does it all mean? To break it all down, Aaron spoke with Laura Pitel, the Turkey correspondent for the Financial Times, about the recen…

Turkey and the F-35 has made a lot of news in the past few weeks. First, Turkey had an interesting cultural display at the Lockheed ceremony in Fort Worth. Second, the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act included language that could threaten the Turkish role in the F-35 consortium. Against this backdrop, Ankara continues to t…

Turkish voters head to the polls on June 24th to vote for the country’s future president and members of parliament. The election outcome is uncertain and hinges on the complicated interplay between two main political coalitions and Turkey’s Kurds. The outcome is uncertain and any number of scenarios are in play. To discuss the latest from the campa…

What the hell is going on in Idlib? Turkey has sent troops into a sliver of territory in northwestern Syria to monitor a tripartite deescalation zone, as part of the Astana process. The terms of the agreement are murky, the reasons the actors agreed to this arrangement are also hard to understand. And to make things more complicated, an Al Qaeda li…

Turkey and the KRG have a complicated energy relationship. Ankara is the KRG’s main conduit for oil exports and, up until about a week ago, was the KRG’s most important ally in its squabbles with Baghdad. Now the tables have turned and the Turks and Baghdad are best friends, so much so that their militaries are LARPing on the border and issuing vag…

The Kurdish referendum is going forward, despite most of the world opposing the non-binding vote on the independence question. The pro-independence campaign will win, but what will the fall out be? Is Iraq destined for more violence? What about Kirkuk and the disputed territories? Iran and Turkey? Federal Iraq? To unpack these issues, Aaron talks w…

After a lengthy hiatus, the Turkey Wonk podcast is back. In the inaugural episode, Aaron speaks with Laura Pitel, an Ankara-based journalist. The conversation touched on all things Turkish politics since the April referendum and the current state of affairs in the “New Turkey”. Links and Images of Note: The Cumhuriyet article. The vest picture:…