Turkey

By ERDAĞ GÖKNAR | (ISLAMiCommentary) | – – Erdağ Göknar The Nov. 1 parliamentary elections in Turkey resulted in an outcome that few commentators or polls had predicted: Another outright parliamentary majority for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AK Party (AKP). In the almost five months since the AKP lost its parliamentary majority on June […]

Democracy

Turkey election: Erdoğan and the AKP get majority back amid climate of violence and fear

contributors

By Bahar Baser and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk | (The Conversation) | – – Turkey’s president, Recep Tayip Erdoğan, appears to have strengthened his grip on the country after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won an outright majority in a snap election just five months after an inconclusive poll. It is a result that will […]

Democracy

Turkey: Can a pro-Feminist, pro-Kurdish Party get out the Women’s Vote?

contributors

By Mona Tajali | (OpenDemocracy) | – – The Turkish HDP’s egalitarian gender ideology played a key role in the election of a record number of women to parliament in June’s election. Can these gains be sustained in the political turmoil ahead? On June 7th Turkey held parliamentary elections which marked major turning points in […]

Featured

Syria: US Boots on Ground risks Conflict with Turkey, not Russia

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The White House’s announcement on Friday that the US will keep “less than 50” special ops troops at an HQ of the Kurdish YPG in northeast Syria for the purposes of training and strategic counseling raised concerns in some quarters that Russia might inadvertently bomb US […]

Democracy

Will Turkey’s Elections bring Peace or More Conflict with Kurds?

contributors

By Peter O’Connor | Diyarbakr | (Informed Comment) | – – Tomorrow, on November 1, Turkish voters will return to the polls for the second time in 5 months. At the core of this election is a conflict that’s been eating away at the country’s east: The “Kurdish question”. In Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of […]

Dissent

Ankara bombs: Turkey is being torn apart by bad leaders and bad neighbors

contributors

By Alpaslan Ozerdem | (The Conversation) | – – It had already been a deadly summer of political instability in Turkey. And now this. Another bloody massacre – this time at the hand of twin bomb attacks on a peace rally in Ankara, which have killed at least 97 people. It is the worst terror […]

Featured

Syria: Will US arming of Kurdish-led Northeast Rebels Provoke Turkey?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The intrepid Anne Barnard and Karim Shoumali at the NYT have a piece on how Saudi-supplied TOW anti-tank weapons to rebels in Hama and Idlib are creating a US-Russian proxy struggle in northwest Syria (the CIA is actually the source of the weapons, with Saudi intelligence […]

Kurds

Who Bombs a Peace Rally? An Unprecedented 95 Dead in Turkey capital as Accusations fly

contributors

Written by John Lubbock | ( Globalvoices.org Twin bombings hit a peace rally organised by leftist groups in Ankara on the morning of October 10 in what has proven the deadliest bomb attack in Turkish history. The interior ministry initially announced a death toll of 30 people. The health ministry updated the figure to 86 […]

Iraq

Turkey fears fallout from Russian strikes in Syria

contributors

Euractiv | – – Turkey will not allow “terror to take root” or “fait accompli situations” next to its borders, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday (1 October), a day after Russia launched air strikes in neighboring Syria. Russia launched its biggest intervention in the Middle East in decades on Wednesday (30 September), targeting […]