By Barış Soydan 

December 10, 2020

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is certainly right to point to the need of reforms to restore the confidence of international investors in Turkey. Yet his determination, and assuming that he’s sincere, his ability to see reforms through is very much in doubt. Besides, Erdoğan retains a hands-on approach to monetary policy even after the departure of his son-in-law Berat Albayrak from the Ministry of Finance. He may well decide once again to stimulate the economy with cheaper and larger amounts of credit, which would inevitably further destabilize the Turkish economy.

By Natalia Konarzewska 

November 23, 2020

In August 2020, Turkey announced the first sizeable natural gas discovery off its Black Sea coast, estimated to contain some 320 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas. In October 2020, after weeks of additional exploration, Turkey revised the estimation of the newfound gas reserve upwards to 405 bcm. The discovery of the Sakarya gas field was met with euphoria, as it came after years of unfruitful quest for indigenous natural gas reserves. The finding promises to ease Turkey’s dependence on hydrocarbon imports and Ankara will likely use its new-found gas field as leverage against Russia, which is bound to have geopolitical implications.

By Sudha Ramachandran

November 11, 2020

Turkey’s relations with China have undergone a sea change in recent years, with deepening bilateral cooperation. Ankara’s economic dependence on China and thus susceptibility to its pressure is rising, and it has led to a shift in Turkey’s policy towards the Uighurs, China’s Turkic minority. Turkey’s decades-old policy of supporting the Uighurs is changing; it is no longer the safe haven it once was for Uighurs fleeing Chinese repression and Turkey is reportedly deporting them to China. The Uighurs risk losing their strongest, if not only, supporter in the Muslim world as China’s role in Turkey’s economy continues to expand. The shift in Turkey’s stance toward the Uighurs is likely to be permanent. It ultimately speaks of the primacy of economic concerns over nationalism.