The moves being made amid the tensions in Ukraine are deepening the global rivalry in world politics

With its new diplomatic engagements, Turkey will create further windows of opportunities to restore its foreign policy

With a mutual-interest-based approach, the two countries can further improve their ties at the political, economic and social levels

Merkel’s last 16 years in office will be recorded in history as one of the most active periods in Turkish-German relations. Erdoğan and Merkel’s efforts to act as two rational actors on the axis of mutual interests became the main driving forces of this 16-year dynamism.

The European Union and the United States were approaching Turkey using the language of sanctions and political pressure rather than empathy and genuine understanding of the country's vulnerabilities.

Before the European Council's leaders' summit two months ago, experts and journalists in Turkey discussed the European Union's possible sanctions. The frozen EU agenda came into the Turkish public's focus with the sanctions threat. Both sides knew that sanctions were illogical and would not contribute to bilateral relations.

2021 will be an essential year for Turkey's foreign policy agenda and practice. Reforms, renewal and forward-looking perspectives are likely to be the focal points of Ankara's foreign policy this year. However, Turkey's structural challenges and diverging issues with key allies like the United States and some European countries are unlikely to see immediate resolutions.

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.

In recent years, the European Union has managed to overcome severe crises and inspire new candidates to full membership despite the unexpected Brexit decision. The union is still seen as a hub of peace and prosperity in spite of the gradual rise of extremist ideologies in the continent and European economies' declining role in global economic activity.

The March 5 agreement between Turkey and Russia put an end to the military confrontation in Idlib, Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, shook hands on that deal to de-escalate what had become serious bilateral tensions. The 2018 Sochi agreement has thus been updated.

Since the beginning of the S-400 crisis between Turkey and the U.S., many have focused on the state of relations between the two countries and the potential impact of this issue on the future of bilateral ties.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unveiled his administration's new judicial reform package on Thursday.

Although the European Parliament elections granted more ground to euroskeptic parties, the situation is still manageable. Turkey will likely rely on bilateral ties rather than EU institutions in the future

President Erdogan: “There are many things that we can contribute to the European Union. They may have things to contribute to us but what should be done is, I suppose, to consult with 81 million people [in Turkey] and see what they will decide.”

In the post-elections era, Ankara is set to follow a multi-dimensional independent foreign policy, facing both regional and global challenges by pursuing rational steps and strategies

All eyes in the Middle East are now on Turkey, which after the presidential elections is on the brink of a major transformation process in its approach to foreign policy

European states have established an anti-Erdoğan and anti-AK Party international coalition in the run up to the June 24 elections