As Turkish-U.S relations have been passing through a difficult period, U.S. President Donald Trump announced last week that he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo via his Twitter account.

It must have been about 6 months now since a Western colleague of mine told me that Turkey's foreign policy had gotten much more aggressive and that he found this odd.

The storm of polarization in the Middle East looks far from an end. At this point, the various players are not even trying to hide their true intentions, which used to be kept to themselves or in private circles.

Moody's report, which was probably written with direction from FETÖ, aims to devalue the Turkish lira

Similar to the confusion prevalent among the U.S.'s traditional allies, Ankara is also experiencing some problems concerning the decision-making processes in U.S. politics.

Washington needs to understand the legitimate reasons why Turkey launched its anti-terrorism operation against the YPG in northern Syria

Washington's risky game with the YPG and Turkey's severe military response to this organization has a potential to bring the strategic cooperation between these two countries to the brink of collapse.

It is high time for Turkey and the EU to start a new era in bilateral relations, but this time it needs to be based on both sides' interests not only the EU's as it was in the past years

U.S. officials responsible for Washington's Syria policy have been suffering from a lapse of reason when it comes to judging Turkey's priorities. It would appear that they are content with the prospect of driving Turkey-U.S. relations to the ground by ignoring Ankara's concerns about the PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) presence in northern Syria.

For the last few years, since the acceleration of the downward spiral in Turkish-U.S. relations, many analysts have indicated that the improvement of relations will partly depend on economic and social relations between the two countries.

France, one of the two founding partners of the EU, lagged behind Germany in the past several years due to problems in its economy, but domestic politics is trying to strengthen its diplomatic posture with its young and visionary president.

The Turkish leadership is not alone in their pursuit of normalization.

Turkey's opposition to Iran's expansionist policies does not preclude its objection to outside intervention and instability

The long-term U.S. strategy for redesigning the Middle East with the creation of more compatible regimes continued with a series of attempts to trigger domestic tensions, civil strife and instability.

Political parties' debates over their campaigns for the 2019 elections have already started, signaling that 2018 will be very challenging

Turkey's foreign policy had a year of transition and change in 2017.