Hot Pursuit

After a series of surprises, crisis and turns of Turkey, Sweden and Finland are formally invited to NATO as members. Marc Pierini, a former ambassador of the EU in Ankara and currently a senior researcher with Carnegie Europe, shares his broad analysis of the various aspects of the dramatic process.

U.S. President Joe Biden's distancing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is becoming more tangible and a crisis within NATO, created by Turkey's objections to the membership of Sweden and Finland, begs the question of whether years of appeasement of Erdoğan by the West has reached a dead end, said Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey Program Director at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

It is very difficult to see an endgame for Turkish foreign policy, because for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is no endgame, said Hamit Bozarslan, Director of the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France.Turkey, under Erdoğan's leadership, escalates series of challenges and crisis within NATO, in the neighbourhood and region. Pushing Sweden and Finland into a corner, Erdoğan ups the ante also with the United States and seems all set for a large-scale incursion into Syrian and Iraqi soil. What's at stake? Has Erdoğan passed the Rubicon? How can NATO react? Will the region's Kurds once more end up as losers of the grand power game? Ahval's Editor in Chief Yavuz Baydar talked to a top expert, Prof Bozarslan on the issue, for Hot Pursuit podcast series on Wednesday.

President Erdoğan's announcement of an imminent incursion onto northern Syria has complicated his spat with NATO. What will Sweden and Finland do, to meet Turkey's conditions to lift its veto on NATO membership? What is the prime reason for Sweden to keep its relations with the Syrian Kurdish YPG forces? At the end of the day, will the USA be able to cut Gordion's Knot? Jan Hallenberg, a top Swedish expert on NATO and a senior researcher with the Insititute of International Relations (UI) explains the context to Yavuz Baydar, Editor of Ahval News.

Yavuz Baydar speaks with Suat Kınıklıoğlu, a top expert on Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey's decades old neo-Ottomanist ideology has been transformed and strengthened under the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Cengiz Çandar, a senior Turkish columnist and Middle East expert.In a discussion with Ahval editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar for the Hot Pursuit podcast, Çandar spoke about his latest book “Turkey's Neo-Ottomanist Moment - A Eurasianist Odyssey”.

Turkey's crisis of democracy may not end with the departure of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as there is ample reason to question whether fair elections would occur in a post-Erdoğan Turkey, said Steven Cook, Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relation.Turkey may struggle to emerge as a healthy democracy due to the transformation of the country's institutions under two decades of Erdoğan's rule, Cook told Ahval editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar in the media outlet's Hot Pursuit podcast series.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees it as a success to secure a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, he may well be walking into a trap, Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C., told Ahval's editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar for the Hot Pursuit podcast series.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe's latest decisions on jailed politician Selahattin Demirtaş and jailed human rights defender and businessperson Osman Kavala, show that Turkish judiciary is not independent, Yavuz Aydın, a judge and a former judicial councillor with Turkey's European Union delegation, said.The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings, has pronounced its decisions concerning Demirtaş and Kavala on Friday, who have not been released despite ECtHR judgements.The Committee of Ministers has extended time given to the Turkish government about the imprisoned former leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş until September 30. It has also decided to wait for Osman Kavala's release before imposing sanctions on Turkey. Aydın discussed CoE's decisions with Yavuz Baydar, Ahval's editor-in-chief, in the Hot Pursuit podcast.

Hasan Kahvecioğlu, journalist from Cyprus, spoke to Yavuz Baydar.

Turkey is never going to have a great relationship with the United States as long as Erdogan continues to behave in autocratic ways, Nicholas Danforth, a non-resident senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, ELIAMEP told Ahval paper's editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar in Ahval's Hot Pursuit YouTube interview series on Tuesday. Baydar has interviewed Nicholas Danforth about the bilateral meeting on Monday between President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels.

Even if Turkey manages to come up with a solution to the S400 issue or the eastern Mediterranean issue during the NATO meeting on June 14 between U.S President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is not going to be a new page within the U.S. Turkish relationship without real democracy and reforms, Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey Program Coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, told Ahval's editor-in-chief in Ahval on Saturday. Tahiroglu said that Ankara really wants an image out of this meeting on Monday of positive U.S-Turkish relations.

Yavuz Baydar, Editor-in-Chief of Ahval, spoke with Kurdish scholar David Phillips.

Turkey's strongman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will try to use some "magic" to reset the relationship with U.S. President Joe Biden at their upcoming meeting in June. His “magic,” however, is unlikely to work at this time, Dr. Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C., told Hot Pursuit.Erdemir said that the meeting between the leaders offers little chance to fix the structural problems in the relationship between the two countries. Both countries have a number of serious issues to resolve. While the U.S. administration asks Turkey to remove the Russian-made S-400 air defence missile system from Turkish soil, Ankara wants Washington to stop Syrian Kurds who seem to be a threat to Turkey’s own national security. The Biden administration will ask the Erdoğan government to improve on its human rights records and democratic standards while the Erdoğan government asks the U.S. government to lift sanctions on some of the weapons systems.What is more, the bilateral meeting will be held under the shadow of the Belarus crisis, Erdemir added. Diplomats have told Reuters, Ankara pushed for the scrapping of any mention of support for sanctions on Belarus and calls for the release of other political prisoners in Belarus after last week’s forced landing of a passenger plane and the subsequent arrest of a dissident journalist by Belarus.There is one topic that has a chance for both leaders to make some progress and for Erdoğan to gain ground, and that is Afghanistan, Erdemir added. Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said previously, completing the military exit by the Sept. 11, 2021. Taliban attacks had drawn the United States into the region and its longest war. Turkey has presented itself as a key partner in Afghanistan and was set to host the peace talks between the Taliban and the U.S. government. However, the talk plans have collapsed. Erdemir said that beyond some potential agreement with regards to Afghanistan, there appears to be no easy way to salvage the relationship.

The accusations levelled by the exiled mafia boss Sedat Peker regarding the Turkish deep state activities, political assassination of a Cypriot journalist and many other shocking revelations paint a very complicated picture for Turkey regarding its ruling coalition.The series of video revelations by Peker indicate that the Turkish state apparatus has been overtaken by several crime rings and mafia bosses at the same time, Ahval editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar said in his Hot Pursuit podcast on Thursday.More than 100 million people, in Turkey and abroad, have locked eyes on the seven hour-long videos Peker released throughout May to understand both the current clash between the mob boss and Turkish interior minister Süleyman Soylu, and some of the past mysterious events Peker appears to be spilling beans on.Baydar said that Soylu had been instrumental in recent years in a plot to rise within the party with the help of “certain people tied to the underground world” including ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Tolga Ağar, whose father Mehmet Ağar served as both the chief of police and interior minister in previous governments. Peker promised to set off further waves of political tsunami in a series of tweets on Wedneesday. The mobster’s allegations and threats seem to have rattled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government, as Peker starts to show signs that he could change direction and target the president directly.

'Mob boss Peker's videos show us the second side of the cartel state of Turkey' - Prof Hamit Bozarslan

In the latest crackdown on Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition party, the HDP, Turkish authorities on Wednesday stripped Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a prominent HDP legislator and human rights advocate, of his parliamentary seat.Meanwhile, a prosecutor filed a case with Turkey’s highest court, seeking the HDP’s disbandment. The HDP has come under intensified pressure recently, with the far-right nationalist allies of President Erdogan’s party calling for it to be banned. The moves against Gergerlioglu and the HDP come weeks after Erdogan pledged a series of human rights reforms.Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey Program Coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, joins The Greek Current with a breaking analysis. *This podcast was presented by Kathimerini and was published with the permission of the creator.

Turkey's European Union membership candidacy trajectory is unsustainable and the country sees the steady demise of freedom and human rights, said former two term deputy of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Haluk Ozdalga during a podcast with Ahval.

Turkey considers the United States not simply a rival but a declining rival which has abandoned foreign intervention in the Middle East since the Obama Administration leading to political vacuum, Howard Eissenstat, an Associate Professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University, said in an AHVAL podcast with Ahval’s editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar. Eissenstat said that Turkey and the US will continue to cooperate despite growing tensions between the two countries. However, Turkey sees itself as an ascending power and it considers the US a declining hegemon. ‘‘Turkey considers the US not simply a rival but a declining rival which has abandoned foreign intervention policy in the Middle East since the Obama Administration leading to a political vacuum’’, said Eissenstat.‘‘It is utterly unsurprising that Turkey, which has long believed that it had a natural role of leadership in the region, would try to step into that gap‘‘.

Duel in the East Mediterranean: Who will win, Erdoğan or Sisi? - Nicholas Danforth / ELIAMEP

'Biden will have big challenges with Turkey, but the ball is fully in Erdoğan's court' - Max Hoffman / CAP

'2020 was the year Erdoğan's Cartel State has run out of its options' - Prof Hamit Bozarslan

- Hot Pursuit -

How Erdoğan became the hostage of the mafia-backed 'cartel state' he constructed? - Prof Hamit Bozarslan

'Picnic' in Varosha: What is Erdoğan's endgame with North Cyprus? - Hasan Kahvecioğlu

Journalist Thomas de Waal, spoke to editor in chief of Ahval Yavuz Baydar

Turkey can expect significant changes in its relations with the United States under a Joe Biden presidency, Steven Cook, senior fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Ahval in a podcast.If elected, Biden would emphasis rule of law with significant possible implications for Turkey, Cook said.

'Erdoğan is the one who won the elections, loser is Northern Cyprus' - Hasan Kahvecioğlu, Cengiz Aktar

'Erdoğan government dials up opposition crackdown by seizing assets’

What does the widening of atrocities in Karabakh region mean? How should one read into the spillover of clashes into Armenia and Azerbaijan? What is Turkey’s strategy in its direct involvement on Azeri side? How does one explain the indecision of Russia to intervene in the conflict, as it passes its eighth day? Is the Turkish engagement the beginning of a Cold War between Ankara and Moscow?Tom de Waal, a top expert on the Caucasus and the author of the book ‘Black Garden”, discusses the Armenian-Azeri war and its possible impact, with Yavuz Baydar, Editor of Ahval.

There is no reason for Armenia to kickstart another bout of conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Thomas de Waal, British journalist and expert on the Caucasus, told Ahval in an exclusive interview. Sunday morning saw a sudden escalation in the conflict, with what Karabakh officials called a “wholescale attack” by the Azerbaijani armed forces, which Azerbaijan maintains was provoked by Armenian military activity.“Basically, Armenians won the war of the 1990s, they have all the territory they want,” de Waal said. “Their incentive is to normalize the status quo.”“For various reasons, Azerbaijan calculates that military action will win it something,” he added.

'Turkish foreign policy is a hostage of Erdoğan's personal interests' - Merve Tahiroğlu / POMED