Turkey called back its research vessel Oruç Reis to port in order to support efforts by Germany and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to facilitate dialogue with Greece. As Ankara and Athens continue to exchange statements, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean will be discussed at the Special European Council on Sept. 24-25.

Recent tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean have multiple drivers including the race for exploitation of energy resources, long-standing maritime disputes, and the broader geopolitical competition between regional powers. While Turkey’s recent assertiveness of her rights in the Eastern Mediterranean drew renewed attention to the region, this round of confrontation has been long in the making.

Western media’s opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is possibly the world’s worst kept secret. Western commentators immediately jump to conclusions about the supposedly expansionist goals of Erdoğan’s Turkey whenever Ankara launches a fresh foreign policy initiative. Experts in Washington, Paris, Athens, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere make the same arguments in an attempt to contain Turkey’s influence to an unbearable extent. At the heart of those comments lies the claim that the Turkish president has isolated his country in the international arena, which will lead the nation to a disaster and that the Turkish people deserve better.

Turkey’s pro-opposition circles take great pride in circulating rumors about the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) supposed declining popular support. Notwithstanding recent approval ratings reported by pollsters of questionable credibility, some online media executives have insisted since 2013 on claiming, and making their guests agree, that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will lose his next election. Although the people of Turkey have repeatedly proved them wrong, they continue to find new arguments to support their views.

Turkey took three crucial steps in late 2019 to tilt the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Those military and diplomatic measures, which the country took in the Mediterranean theater to strengthen its hand at the negotiating table, indicate that the Libya question will fare as prominently in Turkey's agenda as the Syria file.

The Republican People's Party (CHP) is making headlines again. Last month, there was the (false) allegation that a senior member of the main opposition party had visited President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to receive his endorsement in the upcoming race for CHP chairman.

Political polemics are back and as splendid as ever. Turkey's opposition figures are fixated on a range of speculations about the pension system, a tank track plant, city hospitals, early elections and a senior Republican People's Party (CHP) member visiting the presidential palace.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump went exactly as expected. It was a very successful meeting in symbolic terms, allowing the two countries to reaffirm their commitment to working together, mend their strained relationship and keep negotiating. Turkish and U.S. officials found an opportunity to listen to each other at length.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday announced his decision to visit Washington. He reached that decision following a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, who invited him.

Turkey's opposition parties see the replacement of three elected mayors with independent trustees as "part of the government's political game." They claim that this measure was intended to "drive a wedge between the Nation Alliance's components." In other words, the opposition says that the Turkish government sought to plant seeds of discord between the Republican People's Party (CHP), the Good Party (İP), and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

The S-400 air defense system's delivery to Turkey has sparked debate among Western governments on Ankara's future treatment. The question at hand goes beyond concerns about the fate of Turkey-U.S. relations. This is much bigger than one key NATO ally removing another key ally from the joint F-35 fighter jet program.

The Istanbul rerun election fueled new developments in Turkish politics. There is an ongoing discussion on a range of issues including the presidential system and the prospect of new political parties. The newfound "self-confidence" of Kurdish nationalists deserves particular attention in this context. The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) takes credit for the Republican People's Party's (CHP) success in the March 31 and June 23 elections. As a matter of fact, it dates its influence back to the June 2018 elections.

Building on its victory in the rerun Istanbul mayoral elections, Turkey's opposition just launched its campaign to reverse the country's transition to the presidential system. Their current effort is a prelude to a pending call for early elections.

Pesident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Osaka, Japan marked a new chapter in the S-400 dispute. A textbook example of leader-to-leader diplomacy, that meeting paved the way for Trump lending support to the Turkish position on Patriot missiles, the Russian air defense system and the F-35 jet fighter program.

World leaders gathered in Osaka this week for the G20 summit. The summit will witness important side meetings between different heads of states on matters related to critical areas. One of those critical meetings will take place between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President Donald Trump. Given the looming crisis in the relations between the two countries, various unresolved issues in bilateral relations will be discussed in this meeting.

The Istanbul elections always have a significance beyond Istanbul. With its social diversity, economic dynamism and population of 16 million, Istanbul's political atmosphere affects all of Turkey.

It began on Nov. 17, 2018 as a protest against fuel price rises and quickly evolved into a middle-class revolt and subsequently into a movement against French President Emmanuel Macron, who is seen as "favoring the bosses." It spread across France with university students and even high school students joining in protests.