After a series of surprises, crisis and turns of Turkey, Sweden and Finland are formally invited to NATO as members. Marc Pierini, a former ambassador of the EU in Ankara and currently a senior researcher with Carnegie Europe, shares his broad analysis of the various aspects of the dramatic process.By Ahval

U.S. President Joe Biden’s distancing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is becoming more tangible and a crisis within NATO, created by Turkey’s objections to the membership of Sweden and Finland, begs the question of whether years of appeasement of Erdoğan by the West has reached a dead end, said Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey Program Director at …

It is very difficult to see an endgame for Turkish foreign policy, because for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is no endgame, said Hamit Bozarslan, Director of the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. Turkey, under Erdoğan's leadershi…

President Erdoğan's announcement of an imminent incursion onto northern Syria has complicated his spat with NATO. What will Sweden and Finland do, to meet Turkey's conditions to lift its veto on NATO membership? What is the prime reason for Sweden to keep its relations with the Syrian Kurdish YPG forces? At the end of the day, will the USA be able …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will drop his objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO once an enormous amount of pressure is put on him, said Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It is possible that the Europeans and the Americans would find some facesaving concessions …

Yavuz Baydar speaks with Suat Kınıklıoğlu, a top expert on Turkish foreign policy.By Ahval

A certain level of separation between politics and the religious ulema is necessary in the Muslim world, Ahmet Kuru, a political science professor at San Diego State University, told Ahval. "I am optimistic about the future. I see a secularist generation coming," Kuru said in an interview with Nervana Mahmoud for the Ahval podcast series Turkish Tr…

Sunni Islam is coming under heavy criticism for the first time in Turkey’s modern history because of the government’s use of religion in politics, political scientist Gökhan Bacık said. “There’s a growing intellectual criticism on Sunni Islam because it’s very much pro-government, it’s silent on human rights abuses, it’s silent on labour rights, it…

Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said his entire life has been upended by the Turkish government’s unfounded accusations that he was involved in a failed military coup in 2016. Barkey, who is also the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, said the Turki…

Turkey’s decades old neo-Ottomanist ideology has been transformed and strengthened under the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Cengiz Çandar, a senior Turkish columnist and Middle East expert. In a discussion with Ahval editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar for the Hot Pursuit podcast, Çandar spoke about his latest book “Turkey’s Neo-Ot…

Azerbaijan and Iran have become locked in a war of words after they held competing military drills next to their common border. Any sharp military escalation risks drawing in Turkey, Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), said in comments during the latest episode of Ahval’s Turkey A…

Political Islam in Turkey has lost the opportunity to mix with Western ideals and local dynamics, and ended up being restricted to a parochial Islamism, Turkish political scientist Cengiz Aktar said a podcast with Nervana Mahmoud, who hosts Ahval’s “Turkish Trends” series.By Ahval

Turkey’s crisis of democracy may not end with the departure of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as there is ample reason to question whether fair elections would occur in a post-Erdoğan Turkey, said Steven Cook, Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relation. Turkey may struggle to emerge as a he…

By Ahval

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees it as a success to secure a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, he may well be walking into a trap, Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C., told Ahval’s editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar for th…

Washington’s lack of consultation with NATO allies encourages Turkey to pursue policies of self-reliance in national security and foreign relations, said Rich Outzen, a retired colonel and former senior adviser to U.S. special representative for Syrian engagement James Jeffrey. In Afghanistan, the Biden administration rushed the process of deciding…

The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan may have shifted geopolitical calculations in the Middle Eat, enhancing uncertainty and a power vacuum across the region. But the U.S. pullout could have the unexpected side effect of helping to get two regional foes to reconsider their differences - Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said Caro…

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe’s latest decisions on jailed politician Selahattin Demirtaş and jailed human rights defender and businessperson Osman Kavala, show that Turkish judiciary is not independent, Yavuz Aydın, a judge and a former judicial councillor with Turkey's European Union delegation, said. The Committee of Minist…

Now that the United States has completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, Turkey has been among the regional players scrambling to understand the new geopolitical landscape. For whatever concerns Ankara has about instability in a post-U.S. Afghanistan, it also sees room to maneuver as part of a long game with strategic benefits waiting to be reaped…

Turkey’s long-standing relationship with Afghanistan has “survived even the dark days of the Soviet occupation” and has deep roots in the humanitarian, cultural and military assistance spheres, Chris Kilford, history scholar and Canada’s former defence attaché to Turkey and several neighbouring countries, told Edward Stafford in an episode of the A…

A new system of alliances may be shaking shape that stretches from India to Greece that threatens to leave Turkey out in the diplomatic cold. Mohammed Soliman, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington D.C. contends that Turkey’s own aggression in recent years has pushed these countries into a closer alignment. “Erdogan…

An anti-Syrian rampage by angry residents in the Ankara suburb of Altındağ on Wednesday is a latest sign that Turkey may be approaching a dangerous social tipping point. The incident reflects poor policy decisions worsened by hyperpolarised politics and a struggling economy, Cevdet Acu, a Ph.D candidate at the University of Exeter and an expert on …

The U.S. troops’ presence in Syria is preventing terrorism inside Turkey, Chris Kilford, a retired Canadian Air Defence Officer and former Defence Attache to Turkey and Azerbaijan said. As long as the U.S. stays in eastern Syria, Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) realise that they cannot trade problems with Turkey, Kilford said, speaki…

With the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan nearing its completion, Turkey is preparing to step into the gap and may find support from a surprising partner; India. Nayanima Basu, the diplomacy editor for online newspaper ThePrint, explained to Ahval News that for all their disagreements in recent years, India welcomes a Turkish role in a po…

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has utilised its youth organisations to dominate the public discourse and to intimidate the political opposition through social media in Turkey, Süleyman Özeren, a Turkish scholar from George Mason University and a fellow at the Orion Policy Institute, said. Özeren was interviewed by journalist Ne…

Turkey’s use of soft power, including diplomacy and commerce, laid the foundation for calculated risk-taking and military and geo-strategic gains, said Rich Outzen, a retired U.S. army colonel and a geopolitical strategist. Military interventions in Syria’s Idlib, Libya and the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh showed that some risks were worth t…

International abductions conducted by Turkey’s security services should draw more concern from its Western partners than it is currently receiving, said Serdar San, an Ph.D candidate at the University of Toronto and a researcher on transnational repression. San, who wrote an article examining Turkey’s practice of using covert methods that include o…

Turkey is risking the start of a new intra-Kurdish conflict in northern Iraq by pushing the regional government to deepen its involvement in Ankara’s campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), pro-Kurdish activist Sarah Glynn told Ahval News in a recent podcast. Glynn, who recently wrote that Turkey risked pushing Iraqi Kurdistan towards …

Hasan Kahvecioğlu, journalist from Cyprus, spoke to Yavuz Baydar.By Ahval

The Turkish Democracy Project (TDP) seeks to help Turkey return to its more secular and liberal roots, Mark D. Wallace, an American businessman, former diplomat, and lawyer who has served in a variety of government, political and private sector posts, said on Thursday in a podcast for Ahval.By Ahval

Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at the American University and host of the House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed Ahmet T. Kuru, professor of political science at San Diego State University. Kuru explained how Turkey has become an example of a state allied with the ulema, Islam’s scholar class, despite still being a constitutionally secular s…

Dr. Chris Kilford is a Fellow with the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy, and teaches courses at the Canadian Forces College focused on geopolitical issues. He served as Defense Attaché to Turkey from July 2011 until July 2014 with cross accreditation to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan. Kilford reflects on failed coup attempt…

Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed with Louis Fishman, an associate professor at Brooklyn College at City University of New York, on his recent book that provides a historical account on the Young Turks’ policies and the question of Palestine. Jews and Palestinians…

Turkey’s proxies in Libya are doing their best to sabotage the upcoming Libyan elections and keep the foreign forces in the country, Aya Burweilla, a senior adviser at the Research Institute for European and American Studies said. “Against international law, against what Libyans want and against what Libya’s neighbours want, Turkey is trying to kee…

Turkey’s ruling coalition has embarked on a campaign against the country’s LGBTQ community in a bid to fracture its political opposition. Tünay Altay, a researcher and doctoral candidate at Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany, believes that by embracing “political homophobia” , the so-called People’s Alliance is betting they are picking a figh…

The relationship between the United States and Turkey was always one of necessity for Turkey and practicality for political leaders in Washington, said Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, the director of the Ankara based German Marshall Fund. “There’s no such thing that Turkey and the United States once had a golden age in their relations and now it has been los…

United States President Joe Biden arrived at his first NATO summit on Monday to make the case for the alliance to reinvigorate the democratic values of its member states. Rachel Ellehuus, who is the deputy director and senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washingt…

Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed with Noah Feldman, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Chair of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, on his recent book on the Arab Revolutions of 2011.By Ahval

NATO membership is a huge source of prestige for Turkey and that helps the country to sit at the table internationally, Max Hoffman, associate director of National Security and International Policy at the Centre for American Progress (CAP) said. “Erdoğan still values that membership, so hence he played nice in Brussels this week,” Hoffman told Nerv…

No disagreement between Turkey and the United States has been resolved in two presidents’ meeting in Brussels, Chris Kilford, former Canadian Defence Attache to Turkey said.By Ahval

Yavuz Baydar, Editor-in-Chief of Ahval, spoke with political science professor Gökhan Bacık.By Ahval

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at long last met face to face with U.S President Joe Biden in the hopes of ironing out longstanding disagreements. Unfortunately for him, a limited meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit was doomed to be limited in what it could achieve, said Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foun…

Turkey is never going to have a great relationship with the United States as long as Erdogan continues to behave in autocratic ways, Nicholas Danforth, a non-resident senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, ELIAMEP told Ahval paper’s editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar in Ahval’s Hot Pursuit YouTube interview ser…

Turkey has been on a charm offensive ahead of the planned NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, and tries to act as if there is no day-light between Ankara and the alliance, Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Ahval’s Nervana Mahmoud in the new episode of Turkish Trends podcast …

Turkey has been selected to serve as the host for this year’s meeting of the International Criminal Police Organisation, popularly known as Interpol, a move that surprises many because of its troubled track-record with the agency. On June 3, it was announced that Interpol’s 89th General Assembly meeting would be held in Istanbul from Nov. 20 to 25.…

Even if Turkey manages to come up with a solution to the S400 issue or the eastern Mediterranean issue during the NATO meeting on June 14 between U.S President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is not going to be a new page within the U.S. Turkish relationship without real democracy and reforms, Merve Tahiroglu, the …

In the last 5-10 years Turkey-Canada relations have been shaped by Armenian lobby activity, Canadians’ choice of Turkey as a favourite tourist destination and Turkish diplomats’ use of Gülenist social and cultural networks, Bruce Mabley, a Canadian former diplomat to Turkey, told Edward G. Stafford in Ahval’s Anatolian Dispatch interview series on …

Turkish crime boss Sedat Peker ‘s claims, while working to affirm the suspicions and prejudices of many Turks who already had negative views of the government are unlikely to galvanise the opposition, Ryan Gingeras, associate professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Turkish and Middle East history, said.…

Exiled Turkish mafia boss Sedat Peker has for weeks rocked Turkey with videos, detailing sordid dealings he claims knowledge of and the government officials he says orchestrated them. In his eighth video on May 30, Peker turned his attention to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after carefully avoiding any direct mention of the Turkish leader. Peker …

Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed Gülay Türkmen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Graz's Center for Southeast European Studies and a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Under the Banner of Isla…