President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke with reporters covering his day trip to Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, where he attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Iğdır-Nakhchivan Natural Gas Pipeline with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. His main remarks included the following:

Panel I: Emerging / Shared Concerns and Prerequisites for Türkiye and Greece

Panel II: Visions and Means to Manage the Political Incompatibilities of Türkiye and Greece

Successfully managing the risk of a confrontation in Syria, the two leaders strengthened their cooperation in a broad range of areas, including energy, tourism and defense. As the bilateral trade volume reached $69 billion, the two nations set a new target of $100 billion. Against the backdrop of the construction of Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, there are ongoing talks over the possibility of building another plant in Sinop.

Deepening Türkiye’s ties with those three Gulf states in trade, defense, technology, communication and security amounts to more than just reciprocal investments. After all, Türkiye has been gaining influence over the balance of power in that region. The country now seeks to form strategic alliances with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as it did with Doha several years ago. It is also possible for other Gulf states to become part of that trend.

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.

Türkiye will preserve its “strategic autonomy” and redouble its efforts to promote normalization and stronger relations based on “mutual interests.”

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

Natural disasters, wars, and economic collapse tend to seriously undermine social order and make it impossible to address even people’s most basic needs. During such periods, it becomes difficult for communities to feed themselves, find shelter, receive medical attention, relocate, and communicate with others. Individuals and communities have provided emergency assistance to such individuals, without expecting anything in return, to address basic needs like food, shelter, and medical treatment throughout history.

Last week, I traveled to Samarkand, Uzbekistan as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s official delegation to attend the 9th Summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) Summit. At last year’s Istanbul Summit, the entity had taken a major step toward integration by transforming itself from a council to a full-fledged organization.

Mevlut Cavusoglu says Athens blocks pathway to justice on existing issues

'The Cyprus question lies at the center of all Turkish-Greek relations and conflicts. It is a precondition for solving other bilateral issues between the two countries'

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spent two days in Astana, Kazakhstan earlier this week to attend the 6th Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia and the Türkiye-Kazakhstan High-Level Strategic Cooperation meeting. On the occasion of that visit, Ankara and Astana concluded 20 agreements that will take their relations to the next level.

The U.S. has sent a cache of weapons to Greece, some of which were allocated on the Aegean islands. Thus, the U.S. government has indirectly supported Greece’s breach of international law. According to international treaties, these islands have a demilitarized status.

President Erdoğan took a major step at a ceremony for the opening of four cemevis and the groundbreaking for seven others on Friday. He announced that the Presidency for Culture and Cemevis will be established at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the leaders of the Alevi-Bektashi faith will be offered permanent positions there if they desire.

Hardly anyone is surprised by the Greek public’s concerns over Türkiye in this climate of fear. Such concerns or fears have been at the heart of Greek politics for many years.

‘Samarkand and New York summits have shown Türkiye’s determination of following an independent, diversified and global-scale foreign policy’