Turkey

These are the last days of the ‘caliphate’. The place Isis made their capital, Raqqa, in Syria, is encircled and cut off. They have already lost half of Mosul in Iraq, their largest city. Really, what did they expect? This was inevitable from the moment Isis declared war on everyone not in Isis. Defeat was even foreseen by one of the group’s leading thinkers, Abu al-Farouq al-Masri. ‘Announcing enmity to the world will strangle the caliphate in its cradle,’ he said last year. ‘This will bury our project alive.’ Al Masri (the ‘Egyptian’) is or was an elderly cleric and he was delivering a sermon in Raqqa meant as a

They say a picture is worth a thousands words. The one of an off-duty police officer standing triumphantly over the body of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey in Ankara, says so much more. On what was due to be an ordinary evening in the Turkish capital, Andrei Karlov attended a photo exhibition to make a few remarks at the opening of a collection entitled ‘Russia as seen by Turks’. They turned out to be his last. As he addressed the small crowd, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The 62 year-old was, as you’d expect of a man of his status, flanked by men in suits. Little did anyone expect that

President Erdogan is no stranger to blackmailing the EU. He has previously used migrants as a ‘loaded gun’ with which to threaten European leaders. The message is clear: do what I say, or I’ll open the floodgates. This week, he’s been back to his old tricks – bashing the EU and making it clear that if membership talks failed, Turkey would open its borders and allow its three million refugees to stream into Europe. But what sparked this latest resurgence of fighting talk from Erdogan? The clue lies in the vote last week in Strasbourg, when 479 MEPs backed a decision to halt the process of Turkey’s EU accession. This seemed like a long-due

‘Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter,’ bellowed Turkey’s President Erdogan as he officially launched the country’s first and only global English language public broadcaster this week. Thousands gathered for the booze-free spectacular to welcome TRT World onto their screens. But elsewhere in Turkey, the media has been punished. In 2016 more than a hundred media outlets have been closed. Thousands of journalists have been left unemployed and many have been jailed, all for simply being a potential thorn in the side of Erdogan. So when I heard the President saying TRT World was needed to tell Turkey’s story, because other channels are ‘partial’, I

Hurray!  It is not often one gets good news, but here is some.  Jan Boehmermann, the German comedian who read out a rude poem about Sultan Erdogan on German TV, has had the prosecution against him dropped.  In the last couple of hours prosecutors in Mainz said that they did not have ‘sufficient evidence’ against him. Well I say ‘Ha’ to that, for it is purest face-saving.  The evidence was broadcast out on German television in March for any and all to see.  President Erdogan complained and with the approval of Chancellor Merkel an ancient and outdated German law (about not insulting foreign rulers) was dusted off and Jan Boehmermann

On a cool day in Istanbul the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge was opened to much fanfare. Hundreds, if not thousands, came to watch Turkey’s President Erdogan unveil a masterpiece in design and engineering. Named after the conquering Ottoman Sultan who expanded the Empire into the Middle East, it has been billed as a ‘bridge to the future’ for the city and the country. But while this third bridge over the Bosphorus may connect the European and Asian Continents once more, the same can’t be said for Turkey with many of its own communities nor its allies. In an off-the-cuff rambling speech the President used the opportunity to reiterate his core

At a luncheon to mark a thawing of relations between Turkey and Russia this week, the diners were given a particular treat. I’m not talking about Beluga caviar, though it may have been on the menu, but rather the special crockery bearing the image of each country’s presidents set out at each placing. The idea of having Putin and Erdogan beaming at me from ceremonial plates doesn’t appeal hugely, but it seems to have set some of my Turkish colleagues off in raptures. For them the ‘bromance’ is back on. I’m not so sure. The plates were commissioned to mark a meeting between the two men in June 2015. Since

‘One day my mortal body will turn to dust, but the Turkish Republic will stand forever,’ said Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern nation. As such he is rewarded a special place in Turkish history as the ‘father of the Turks’. Indeed this is what Ataturk, the surname he was given by the people, means. And it’s impossible to be in Turkey without seeing his image wherever you go. His face adorns the currency, both paper and coinage, it’s engraved on plaques, printed on flags, statues celebrating the man are too numerous to count, there is even a shop in Istanbul which has one item on its inventory,

The three-month school summer recess began in Turkey just over four weeks ago. But for some teachers they may never see the inside of a school here again. As part of President Erdogan’s post-failed coup cleansing, 21,000 teachers have had their licenses revoked. I’ll say that again, 21,000 teachers have had their licenses revoked. Why? It’s simple, they’ve been accused of having links to a movement which Turkey has proscribed a terrorist organisation. In reality this is McCarthyism playing out in the 21st century. The group they’ve been associated with is an Islamic and social movement led by a cleric called Fethullah Gulen. It funds private schools and universities in more than