Ankara is getting ready for a military operation against the threat of a terror corridor on the Syrian border, dispatching military convoys to southern cities, hitting PKK/PYD targets in Afrin

Political analyst, Nebi Miş, said the AK Party and MHP's possible election alliance is a necessary tactical move with the new presidential system, while the main opposition CHP has failed to create a long-term policy to challenge the other bloc

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.

Turkey will hold three elections in 2019: Local, parliamentary, and presidential. The local elections are planned for March 24, while the parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled for the same day. Nov. 3, 2019 is significant for the first application of the presidential system, which will be available once adjustment laws are approved in line with the constitutional changes voted for in the April 16 referendum.

Gülenist terrorists try to do all they can to interfere in the Attila and Zarrab cases with the aim to harm Turkey

The escalation of the nuclear issue with Iran, the unveiling of the Gulf crisis with Qatar, the crisis with Turkey over the support for the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and the alleged involvement in domestic power struggles in Saudi Arabia were all indications of this tendency.

Needless to say, the Turkish government will probably consider the second scenario an effort to meddle with the 2019 elections in Turkey.

The changes in the AK Party as the 2019 elections approach is directly connected with Turkey and the region's transformation

The 2019 elections are too critical to be "left" to Turkey's domestic politics alone. We cannot expect European capitals, which blatantly developed an attitude against the April 16 referendum, and the Gulf States, which acted implicitly, to remain silent in these elections.

At the heart of the AK Party leadership’s courage lies their ability to actively and rapidly respond to political circumstances and trends. To be clear, this isn’t just about pragmatism necessitated by facts and needs.

In particular, the successive U.S. administrations made it clear that their quest to promote "moderate Islam" was ingenuine at four points:

Despite the push to present Meral Akşener, the chairwoman of the newly established İYİ Party, as an alternative candidate against President Erdoğan in the run up to the 2019 presidential elections, Professor Duran thinks this will not translate into results, as a true candidate for the opposition parties is yet to be identified

Turkish-U.S. relations are going through neither a structural crisis nor conjectural tension. I think relations are experiencing structural tension.

Turkey's Western allies, which conveniently turned a blind eye to Ankara's vital interests, have effectively compelled the Turks to work more closely with Moscow and Tehran.

Barzani is likely to discover that he committed an existential mistake when the chain reactions from his drive for independence begin to emerge