Turkey could be very active in pushing for a better deal from the IMF and the World Trade Organization (WTO) for developing countries in the context of crisis prevention strategies and the advancement of the Doha Development Agenda.

Turkey will enjoy the opportunity to bring its own policy priorities as well as the priorities of developing countries across those areas to the attention of the leaderships of 20 major world economies.

Tunisia and Morocco have improved their standards of democracy and positively responded to the demands of their people throughout the Arab Spring.

Turkey's policy entrepreneurship within the G-20 has been weaker compared to similar middle powers, but holding the rotating presidency presents a golden opportunity to upgrade its activism in economic diplomacy platforms.

If you were to scratch today's date off a number of ideologically-charged opposition papers and replaced them with, say, 1989 or 2002, you would encounter no absurd situation.

In this new era of Turkish politics, unsurprisingly there will be significant continuities in many public policy realms. The new government formed under the leadership of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will continue most of the policies and projects that were started earlier.

Erdoğan's speech suggests that he desires to promote his notion of citizenship in the New Turkey. However, winning the presidential race also provided him with the legitimacy and opportunity to fully implement reforms for the Kurds and the Alevi community.

There are three presidential candidates, but actually only two of them are running and the other one keeps saying that "he will not be involved in politics."

That Turkey was going to face a tripartite campaign race during 2014-2015 has been known since the Constitutional Court ruling on the amendments to the electoral laws in 2012.

In addition to having the power to influence the other elections, the president-elect who emerges from the presidential election, as the first president to have been elected by popular vote, will have to be a “different kind of president.”

Ever since the general elections of June 12, 2011, even without knowing how exactly events would unfold, it was not difficult to see that 2014 stood to become a very difficult political long year.

The Ak Party which integrated a discourse of civilization with Erdoğan's leadership, has the courage to confront all fears of the history of Turkish modernization.

Turkey must complete its reconciliation process with the Kurds, reinforce local administrations and initiate further democratization initiatives.

Turkey’s political interest in Africa has also prompted a diplomatic expansion. Turkey has increased its number of embassies on the continent from 12 in 2002 to 34 in 2013.

While no big surprises are expected from the local elections, the perception of success or failure of the ruling party will have an impact on its calculations with respect to the presidential election and the parliamentary election in 2015.

After the Dec. 17 operation, the local elections that are supposed to take place on March 30 have come to mean much more than local elections.