Photo from Turkish Daily News
…While he was commanding his troops to eliminate terrorists inside and outside of the country’s borders, Gen. Ilker Basbug was also pondering … ways to stop young Kurdish boys joining the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK…. He had proposed taking social and economic steps to make life better in the […]
At the Supreme Military Council’s (YAS) annual meeting promotions and retirements are announced. The decisions of this year’s 4-day meeting, held last week, are awaiting President Gul’s signature to take effect. Ordinarily, officers under suspicion of leading a pious lifestyle (for instance, if their wives wear headscarves) are purged from the military at the YAS […]
Ilker Basbug
Photo from Today’s Zaman
Turkey’s Supreme Military Council (YAS) met to decide this year’s shuffle of military commanders. Land Forces Commander Gen. Ilker Basbug will take the place of Gen. Yasar Buyukanit as the new chief of general staff. Once President Abdullah Gül approves the decisions, they will become effective August 30. Naval and […]
As Turkey’s parliament joins its citizens at the beaches and in the cool mountains for summer vacation, it has signaled that in the fall it will focus on getting the new, more liberal constitution off the ground. Come autumn, the ground will be as thick with things to do as leaves on the ground.
Enforcing work […]
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) has launched an analysis series On Turkey (click here) about Turkey’s current political situation and its future. GMF will provide regular analysis briefs by leading Turkish, European, and American writers and intellectuals, with a focus on dispatches from on-the-ground Turkish observers.
Today’s Zaman has published a useful brief history of the case against the AKP, beginning with the founding of the AKP: click here
I just published an essay on the situation in Turkey on the SSRC (Social Science Research Council) blog, The Immanent Frame. To read it, click here.
Photo from Radikal
Photos from Zaman
The Constitutional Court has finished its deliberations about whether or not the ruling AK Party should be closed down for being a center of anti-secular activities and 71 of its politicians banned from membership in a political party for 5 years. By a one-vote margin, the court […]
If even half of what is contained in the 2500-page indictment against the Ergenekon gang is true, this has been a long-running conspiracy of truly monstrous proportions. Below are some examples. (To read the article I took them from, click here)
Ergenekon, an organization [with alleged links to the military and security forces, as well as […]
Vulture parties are swooping in to land and position themselves to pick up votes after the AK Party is closed.
A new political party was announced today, the Hak ve Hakikat Partisi. My preliminary translation is Truth and Reality Party (each of the terms has a number of meanings. Hak also means right and justice. Hakikat […]