By Reuben Silverman

January 12, 2024

On the eve of Turkey’s centennial anniversary celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a mass rally in support of Palestine. He reminded his audience that, only a century earlier, Gaza had been part of the Ottoman Empire. He condemned Israel’s government and criticized the West for remaining silent in the face of Israel’s retaliatory killing of civilians, wondering if it wanted to encourage conflict between “crescent and cross.” Yet, while this heated rhetoric positions Turkey as the ultimate opponent of Israeli expansionism and protector of Palestinians, it obscures on-going Turkish-Israeli relations and the strategic interests that may limit Erdoğan’s actual diplomatic options.

By Barçın Yinanç

November 9, 2023

A peace settlement in the Caucasus provides a huge window of opportunity for the realization of the Middle Corridor. Turkey needs to strike the right balance in its relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan while neutralizing the disruptive influence of Iran and Russia. Turkey, whose military backing has been decisive in Azerbaijan’s victories in Nagorno-Karabakh, needs to convince its close ally that it’s in their common interest that Armenia is rewarded for its policies, and that inaction could prove costly for regional peace and pan-Turkic ambitions.

By Natalia Konarzewska

June 26, 2023

Turkey supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and has supplied Kyiv with large amounts of weapons, yet at the same time it does not want to sever ties with Russia. On the contrary, Turkey has significantly increased its trade exchange with Russia and faces Western accusations that its commercial ties help fuel the Russian war effort. However, trade cooperation with Russia remains crucial for Turkey and the country is unlikely to change course.

By Barçın Yinanç

January 17, 2022

While it was fear of Russia that prevented the Central Asian countries from showing an interest in the Middle Corridor, it is ironically the same Russian factor that has today led to the reinvigoration of this alternative to the Northern Corridor. However, crucially, the future of the Middle Corridor depends on European interest and particularly on the European Union revising its attitude toward Turkey that has been spearheading the project for more than a decade and that is indispensable to its realization. European decision makers must recognize that they need to join hands with Turkey to make the Middle Corridor come to fruition.

By Halil Karaveli

October 6, 2022

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s potential candidacy in next year’s presidential election is causing tensions within Turkey’s six party main opposition alliance, raising doubts about the viability of the alternative alliance to the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has rebounded in the polls. Turkey’s past, sociology and the right-wing character of the opposition alliance where the CHP is in ideological minority militate against the social democrat Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential bid. And while Turkey’s long-standing culture war between seculars and religious conservatives may have come to an end, ethnic aspirations and rising socio-economic discontent – to which the left and the right respond differently – are bound to fuel societal conflict and make it difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a the left-right opposition alliance and the notion that there is a viable alternative to Erdoğan.