People trying to put labels on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strong reaction to French President Emmanuel Macron’s Islamophobic provocations make plenty of accusations – all part of a broader, ideologically charged campaign to distort the truth. Critics accuse Erdoğan of waging a "culture war" and contributing to the radicalization of Muslims by promoting an atmosphere of violence. Others question why the Turkish president seeks to write a new, anti-Western story.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened the new campus of Ibn Khaldun University – an amalgam of Seljuk, Ottoman and Republican Turkish architecture. With a greater ratio of international students than any other institution in Turkey, currently 30%, Ibn Khaldun is a next-generation university with a firm commitment to the idea of intellectual independence.

Once again, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, started a new debate over early elections. This time around, he urged Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairperson Devlet Bahçeli, whose movement is part of the pro-government People’s Alliance, to say “enough is enough” and lead the country to elections. Kılıçdaroğlu’s message was an obvious, yet timid, response to Bahçeli’s earlier call on the Good Party’s (IP) Meral Akşener to return home. Former Finance Minister Ali Babacan, who currently chairs the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), echoed the same sentiment, in a meeting with Kılıçdaroğlu and claimed that Turkey’s current system of government would not last until June 2023.

Through a wide range of articles and commentaries, this issue aims to bring to its readers a comprehensive framework on the transformation of Turkey’s Defense Industry and changing patterns of its military strategy.

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.

Taking advantage of an unstable political system and toxic civilian-military relations, FETÖ infiltrated the Turkish military and exploited what it could

Turkey’s discovery of natural gas in the Black Sea looks to remain a hot topic for the foreseeable future.

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) celebrated its 19th birthday earlier this week. Over the course of its history, the movement has single-handedly governed Turkey – an accomplishment that has eluded all others in the history of the country’s multi-party democracy.

For years now debate has raged in Washington, D.C., about anti-Americanism in Turkey. Various reports and analyses have pointed to it as the biggest spoiler of the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Turkey’s party politics cannot seem to lose momentum. Two new political movements have recently emerged out of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Now, the Republican People's Party (CHP), which just held its 37th Congress, faces the same possibility.

The Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 37th Congress resulted in the strengthening of the already dominant politician, Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as he attempts to reshape the movement. Over the last decade, the main opposition leader has failed in every election yet increased his party’s ability to ally itself with his counterparts of choice with every passing day.

After many years of waiting, Turkey’s Muslims rejoiced at the opportunity to perform their Friday and Eid prayers at the Hagia Sophia. That joy, to nobody’s surprise, went hand in hand with a war of words between Turkish politicians. Critics speculated that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration intended to “restore the caliphate,” claiming that Turkey’s top imam had “cursed” Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the republic’s founder, in his Friday sermon.

Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453 by Sultan Mehmed II as a symbol of the Ottoman conquest of the city. It served as a mosque until 1934, when it was converted to a museum. Many other steps were taken during the first two decades of the Republic of Turkey, which solidified the rupture of the new regime from its past and were considered a necessity for the recognition of the new regime by the international community. Not only Muslims but also non-Muslims were deprived of many religious rights. For instance, many properties belonging to non-Muslim charitable foundations were appropriated by the government.

The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque's reopening, an embodiment of Turkey’s free will, could not have been possible without Erdoğan’s leadership and the Turkish people’s confidence in him. Hagia Sophia’s "resurrection" has become a symbol of Turkey’s efforts to become a prominent player in the international arena. A missing piece of our national identity has thus been put back in place. No politician would ever dare to reverse this decision as long as Turkey remains a democracy.

The Gülenist Terror Group's (FETÖ) July 15 coup attempt in 2016 was one of the darkest moments in Turkish political history. It was a traumatic event for the Turkish bureaucracy and military.

Hagia Sophia’s reinstatement as a mosque resulted in a sudden spike in Western media reports about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Needless to say, almost all of those stories were full of accusations and speculation about Turkey’s agenda.

'What they have done in Turkey they are doing in all countries in which they operate,' says Cevdet Yilmaz