In January 2016, the group called Academics for Peace issued a petition. It is an initiative run predominantly by intellectuals in Turkey concerned with the need to prevent further conflict in south-east Turkey, supporting the return to a peace process as soon as possible. This particular petition, however, dubbed ‘we will not be party to this […]
Tag: AKP
Turkey in Conflict Today
Dear friends and colleagues, thank you for taking the time to be here this morning at the official launch of my new book, Contemporary Turkey in Conflict, published a few short months ago. I also want to thank RUSI for graciously hosting this launch, and my good friend and colleague, Dr Elshimi, for kindly agreeing […]
The Dutch-Turkish Spat: How Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right
A few days ago, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, was prevented from landing in the Netherlands so that he could speak at a rally in Rotterdam. In response, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to the Dutch as ‘Nazi remnants’. A poor choice of phraseology, although he spoke in Turkish and translations of his remarks are […]
Turkey: Important power in a troubled region
Full text of my talk, presented on the panel with Dr Turhan Ozen, Turkey: Important power in a troubled region, convened by Open Discussions in association with Gulf Cultural Club, Arbar House, Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, W1H 4LP, 14 February 2017 Chair, fellow panellist and guests in the audience, thank you very much […]
Berlin, Ankara and Zurich…
In the space of a few short hours, three separate terrorist incidents shocked the world. It might be incumbent upon the thinking individual to suggest some sort of pattern here or to determine the links between these different events to put forward an overarching paradigm, but it would also be foolhardy and somewhat disingenuous. In […]
No Freedom, No Speech
Yesterday afternoon, the AKP moved in on Turkey’s biggest selling daily newspaper group, Zaman and Today’s Zaman in English, calling in the administrators, placing the news outlet under the authority of the government. The silencing of so-called dissenting media voices has occurred systematically over the years, leading to charges of authoritarianism, the abuse of power […]
My New York State of Mind
I recently returned from a semester stint as a visiting scholar at the famed New York University, a renowned institution of higher learning in the US, and recognised the world over. Afforded the distinct luxury of allocated NYU housing on West Fourth Street, the entrance to the block was at the foot of Fifth Avenue, […]
Erdogan’s winning hand
No one in their right minds could have predicted the election outcome in Turkey on 1 November. The pollsters got it wrong again. There may or may not have been a kind of fraudulent victory, but Erdogan’s gamble worked. His party is back with an overall majority, and his own future as the president with […]