President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday as part of his tour of the Gulf states. Over the course of four days, he will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) with a focus on investments and commercial relations. However, it is possible to argue that Erdoğan’s trip goes beyond strictly economic relations and marks the beginning of a new chapter in Türkiye’s relations with the Gulf.

Saturday marked the seventh anniversary of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Türkiye – also known as the "Legend of July 15." It is impossible to forget that dark night and the bright morning that followed. The memory of thinking to myself that “this nation and country do not deserve this experience” on the Bosporus Bridge, as prayers filled the sky and our hearts, remains perfectly fresh.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan turned the question of Sweden’s NATO membership into an opportunity to start a new chapter in Türkiye’s relations with the West. Having hosted his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in Istanbul ahead of the Vilnius summit and stating that Ukraine deserved to join the alliance, Erdoğan brought up the need to remove obstacles before his country’s European Union membership.

The Vilnius Summit is taking place at a time when the NATO alliance is beginning to overcome the strategic ambiguity it has experienced since the Cold War. Following the United States' declaration of a "war on global terrorism" after the September 11 attacks, NATO became involved in Afghanistan, but the alliance was unable to develop a strategy that aligned with the changing international security system. NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept document mentioned cooperation with Russia but made no reference to the threat posed by China. Failing to provide a strong response to the annexation of Crimea, the alliance suddenly found itself facing the risk of nuclear war in Europe with Russia's attempted occupation of Ukraine. This development served as a reminder of NATO's core mission and highlighted the need for a complete reassessment of Europe's security. The alliance attempted to present a comprehensive vision against Russia, China, and other global threats in its 2022 Strategic Concept document.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) provincial leaders Thursday that his movement wanted to capture opposition-held municipalities, starting with Istanbul and Ankara, in the March 2024 local elections.

Sweden made headlines in Türkiye again this week by permitting yet another Quran burning under police protection on the first day of Qurban Bayram, also known as Eid al-Adha. That heinous act took place near a mosque in Stockholm, as had another burning in January, and had absolutely nothing to do with freedom of expression. Quite the contrary, it was a hate crime targeting Muslims and an obvious act of provocation.

As we witnessed one of the most significant elections on the centennial of the Turkish Republic’s founding, Insight Turkey proudly presents a special issue that meticulously evaluates the elections and examines how Türkiye’s foreign policy will be shaped in their aftermath and we hope and believe that the insightful and stimulating debates raised on the issue will be helpful to our readers.

Losing the May 2023 elections dragged Türkiye’s opposition parties into a crisis of “change” and “taking stock.” The leadership fight within the Republican People’s Party (CHP) continues to capture the Turkish people’s attention.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Azerbaijan earlier this week.

Since the restructuring of the state administration in the wake of the failed coup attempt in July 2016, Türkiye has been following a holistic foreign policy. Several significant changes were made to increase the effectiveness of Turkish foreign policy.

Over the weekend, President Erdoğan and his new Cabinet started working toward the “Century of Türkiye.” The Turkish leader has many items on his diplomatic agenda – as the number of world leaders congratulating him and attending his inauguration ceremony suggests. Over the following years, Türkiye will promote peace, stability and cooperation in its neighborhood, consolidate its continent-wide initiatives and strive toward a more just world order.

At the height of his political power, Erdoğan will make improvements to the presidential system in an attempt to consolidate it. Adopting a holistic approach to all parts of politics, he will try to take bold steps and launch new initiatives in Türkiye.

The results of last week's Turkish election runoff came in sooner than anticipated. By 7pm in Istanbul (4pm GMT), it was clear that incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had won another term in office with a little over 52 percent of the vote.

Erdoğan has a respectable track record. In addition to the 1994 mayoral race in Istanbul, he has won 16 popular contests (including several constitutional referendums) since 2002. In May 2023, after 21 years in power, the Turkish leader achieved a parliamentary majority with the People’s Alliance and received the Turkish people’s permission to serve five more years as president.

President Erdoğan has received 52.18% of the vote, while his rival Kılıçdaroğlu received 47.82%. Thus, President Erdoğan has won over 10 elections – including presidential elections, parliamentarian elections, local elections and referendums – that he entered since 2002. This is a record-high number in the history of modern Türkiye, which made Erdoğan the longest-serving statesman in the history of the Turkish Republic.

Turkish foreign policy is faced with the task of preserving the gains it has made in various critical issues, from Libya to Azerbaijan, Ukraine to the Eastern Mediterranean, while improving economic relations with Europe, increasing effectiveness within NATO, and managing the impacts of global power shifts.

Before the first-round election on May 14, many people supposed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s long-standing winning streak would be broken. This belief was fueled by high inflation and the devastating earthquakes that had occurred just three months before the elections. Nonetheless, the outcomes of the first-round election contradicted the predictions of almost all polls, leading to historic results that surprised many.