The strongest insurance for the Gülen Movement is not being organized in the Police Department and the Judiciary, but relying on the society by being getting free from (such) bureaucratic establishments and and the place its endearing services occupy in people’s hearts.

The political performance presented in the Diyarbakır visit of Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdish Regional Administration in Northern Iraq, and of Erdoğan will create an effect of clearing the early reservations of the Kurdish Movement about the political ground and political strength of Erdoğan.

It is impossible for the old tutelary foundation that is cemented by the Constitution to carry the emerging new edifice of Turkey.

Taha Özhan: Hosting Massoud Barzani in Diyarbakır is a significant turning point which has a consistent decade-old background history, and we may regard it as an ultimate-point for the state.

The disagreement between Turkey and the US on the Syrian issue and the coup d’état in Egypt are contributing factors to increased criticism of Turkey in Washington.

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) may become more isolated in doing politic as well. As it continues to carry the burden of progressive democratization all by itself, there is no reason for the AK Party not to maintain its political hegemony.

As the presence of the foreign mainstream media in Turkey is felt more every day, young and unemployed foreigners who want to be journalists and free-lance reporters around the world rush to Turkey.

The biggest obstacle that stands before Turkey’s democratization efforts today is nothing but the 1980 constitution, which was drafted based on the founding ideology after the coup.

Today, quite common verbal attacks against Turkey through the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan are directly related to the security architecture and the preferences thereof, the change in problem solving methods and the efforts to remain independent in foreign policy.

Turkey will suffer from normalization pains just a while longer. Issues stemming from Kemalism will continue to plague our daily lives until the articles that regulate state-religion, military-civilian and state-citizen relations in the Constitution are amended.

As one Kurdish issue is being resolved, another is being created. The new Kurdish issue is nothing but “the PKK’s Kurdish issue.”

This analysis offers a general assessment of Turkey’s relations with the Balkans under the AK Party government.