Iran’s gainless agenda in new Middle East balance
Iran's ruling elite has translated a poem that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recited in Baku, Azerbaijan, into political tension. While politicians made aggressive statements, Iranian media outlets accused the Turkish leader of pursuing a leadership role in the Muslim world and a policy of Ottomanism and pan-Turkism. Others claimed Ankara was fueling separatism in Iran, putting the country's territorial integrity at risk.
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Western alliance’s engagement with Turkey remains unclear
The question of whether the United States and the European Union will apply sanctions against Turkey has finally been resolved. U.S. President Donald Trump signed off on a series of sanctions against Turkey, and over the next few weeks, we will find out which of the 12 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions Trump will impose on Ankara.
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Since the U.S. elections, there have been optimistic analyses about the future of trans-Atlantic relations. Leaders of the European Union were among the first to call President-elect Joe Biden to congratulate him on his victory. They expressed hope of reviving the partnership between allies on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conveyed a powerful message to European leaders, who will meet later this week, in reference to the Eastern Mediterranean. He called on the European Union to save itself from “strategic blindness” and not to let Greece and the Greek Cypriots use Brussels as a battering ram.
Ankara's foreign policy moves are not motivated by maximalist claims, but a geopolitical necessity to protect its security, interests
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is forming his Cabinet, and there has been a flurry of analysis about the names he nominated for key positions. The candidates, their backgrounds and previous experiences demonstrate that Biden is planning to follow a different form of presidency in the next four years.
Assassination of Fakhrizadeh: Another indication of systemic crisis
The current international system is in deep crisis because its main actors, including the U.S. and many other Western countries, do not respect its principles. Most Western countries nowadays have put aside the main principles of the international system, namely liberal democracy and the liberal economy.
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Reform in Turkey – but how?
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unveiled the framework for his administration’s reform agenda at the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) parliamentary meeting last week. That policy initiative seeks to promote more production, encourage new investments and create new jobs – as well as adopt new regulations for the judiciary and human rights. The administration thus seeks to boost confidence in the market economy and the rule of law.
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Last week, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announced some of the most senior names of his national security and foreign policy team. The only surprise was the appointment of former Secretary of State John Kerry as a special envoy for climate change with a Cabinet-level position. The other names were mostly expected by Washington pundits.
Whatever the circumstances, Erdoğan can catch the political zeitgeist and use it for the benefit of Turkish interests
Various geopolitical issues, in which Turkey has taken active steps in recent years, are quickly developing and on two key fronts, the conflict has given way to reconciliation.
It is in the U.S.' and Turkey’s best interest for the Democrats to set aside “ideological” prejudice for a while.
The 2020 U.S. presidential election will go down in history as a sign of the U.S. democracy's deepening crisis. The ongoing problems are not just about Donald Trump's unusual presidency or the popularity of Trumpism.
The U.S. election is over. Contrary to expectations, there was no landslide in the elections. There was no blue wave and there was no overwhelming victory of one candidate over the other. The major losers of this election are again the pollsters. It turned out that the Democrats were right to have anxiety over the polls as they demonstrated a solid and consistent Democratic lead in major key battleground states. There will be a lot of evaluations and assessments of the election results. My initial observations include the following.
Provided that the incoming president will take over on Jan. 20, 2021, the transition period is expected to be painful if Trump loses the election. The elephant in the room is not unknown: Even if Trump were to lose, what he stands for (let’s call it Trumpism) remains influential among American voters.
There are only 25 days left to the most significant and consequential elections in recent U.S. history. Mail-in and early voting have already started across the country. According to the latest statistics, almost 7 million people have already cast their ballots, which signals that this could be the election with the highest turnout in U.S. electoral history. It seems that instead of suppressing voting, COVID-19, through mail-in and absentee ballots, may increase the voting in many states in the U.S.
After a long COVID-19 interval, the two U.S. presidential candidates launched their campaigns and started to meet voters. Trump campaign prefers to organize large rallies in the battleground states, despite a rise in the number of COVID-19 infections there. Joe Biden's campaign, on the other hand, chose to organize small gatherings as per social distancing rules and broadcast the former vice president's remarks online.
