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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will drop his objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO once an enormous amount of pressure is put on him, said Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“It is possible that the Europeans and the Americans would find some facesaving concessions that may not mean much but will satisfy him,” said Barkey, who is also the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University.
A certain level of separation between politics and the religious ulema is necessary in the Muslim world, Ahmet Kuru, a political science professor at San Diego State University, told Ahval.
"I am optimistic about the future. I see a secularist generation coming," Kuru said in an interview with Nervana Mahmoud for the Ahval podcast series Turkish Trends.
Sunni Islam is coming under heavy criticism for the first time in Turkey’s modern history because of the government’s use of religion in politics, political scientist Gökhan Bacık said.
“There’s a growing intellectual criticism on Sunni Islam because it’s very much pro-government, it’s silent on human rights abuses, it’s silent on labour rights, it’s silent on gender problems,” Bacık said in an interview with Nervana Mahmoud for Ahval podcast series, Turkish Trends.
“Sunni scholars, who are blamed for that, are acting just to legitimise Islamist politics, mainly the government,” he said.
Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said his entire life has been upended by the Turkish government’s unfounded accusations that he was involved in a failed military coup in 2016.
Barkey, who is also the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, said the Turkish authorities have formally charged and prosecuted him in absentia with no evidence. He spoke in an interview with journalist Nervana Mahmoud for Ahval’s Turkish Trends podcast series.
Political Islam in Turkey has lost the opportunity to mix with Western ideals and local dynamics, and ended up being restricted to a parochial Islamism, Turkish political scientist Cengiz Aktar said a podcast with Nervana Mahmoud, who hosts Ahval’s “Turkish Trends” series.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has utilised its youth organisations to dominate the public discourse and to intimidate the political opposition through social media
in Turkey, Süleyman Özeren, a Turkish scholar from George Mason University and a fellow at the Orion Policy Institute, said.
Özeren was interviewed by journalist Nervana Mahmoud in an Ahval podcast.
Turkey’s proxies in Libya are doing their best to sabotage the upcoming Libyan elections and keep the foreign forces in the country, Aya Burweilla, a senior adviser at the Research Institute for European and American Studies said. “Against international law, against what Libyans want and against what Libya’s neighbours want, Turkey is trying to keep the illegal foreign occupation in Libya,” Burweilla told Nervana Mahmoud, a political commentator and host of Ahval's Turkish Trends podcast programme on Monday.
NATO membership is a huge source of prestige for Turkey and that helps the country to sit at the table internationally, Max Hoffman, associate director of National Security and International Policy at the Centre for American Progress (CAP) said. “Erdoğan still values that membership, so hence he played nice in Brussels this week,” Hoffman told Nervana Mahmoud, the host of Ahval’s Turkish Trends podcast on Thursday. “He wants an independent relationship with Russia but the NATO membership also protects him from Russia,” Hoffman said.
Turkey has been on a charm offensive ahead of the planned NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, and tries to act as if there is no day-light between Ankara and the alliance, Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Ahval’s Nervana Mahmoud in the new episode of Turkish Trends podcast series. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will have a number of bilateral meetings during the NATO summit, including with his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden to discuss crisis-ridden bilateral relations.
Turkish crime boss Sedat Peker ‘s claims, while working to affirm the suspicions and prejudices of many Turks who already had negative views of the government are unlikely to galvanise the opposition, Ryan Gingeras, associate professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Turkish and Middle East history, said.
Greece has prioritized the entente with neighbouring Turkey in order to gain time to push the country’s economy back onto a positive trajectory, European affairs analyst Yannis Koutsomitis said.
Greece’s economic recovery has been the most important factor behind Athens' agreement to mend ties with regional rival Turkey, Koutsomitis told journalist Nervana Mahmoud in an Ahval podcast series Turkish Trends on Tuesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a personal dislike for businessman Osman Kavala, who is kept in prison based on conspiracy theories, Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, said.
Barkey told Ahval podcast with journalist Nervana Mahmoud on Tuesday that Turkey had accused him of organizing the coup attempt in 2016 as they were “looking to blame the United States for it.’’
Israel and Egypt are probably going to be pretty much on the same page wanting to keep Turkey out of Gaza as a site of rivalry, Michael Koplow, the Policy Director of the Israel Policy Forum in Washington, DC, told journalist Nervan Mahmoud in an Ahval podcast on Wednesday. Koplow said that the tiny Jewish community in Istanbul feel under pressure following a recent escalation between Israeli army and Palestinian residents in Gaza, which could strain an already tense relationship between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
Turkey’s refusal to withdraw its foreign mercenaries from Libya illustrates a certain kind of imperialism prompted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s neo-Ottomanism, Libya expert Aya Burweila said. Turkey continues to justify its military existence in Libya as legitimate and has rejected a military withdrawal from the country, which the people of Libya will not accept, Burweila told Nervana Mahmoud in a podcast on political developments in the oil rich North African country.
The heyday of relations between Turkey and Iran seems to be running out of steam, Vahid Yücesoy, a PhD candidate in University of Montreal with Iran and Turkey interests, said. “However, we cannot really say that the two countries are in conflicting terms,” Yücesoy told Nervana Mahmoud, the host of Ahval’s Turkish Trends podcast programme.
This week’s informal negotiations sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva aimed to make progress towards reunifying Cyprus after almost half a decade of division. But there are looming questions as to whether talks between the two sides managed to move even an inch closer to a resolution. Fikri Toros, a member of the TRNC parliament, believes that negotiations should continue and that the appetite for a just reunification exists on his side.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not an outlier when it comes to reacting to the genocide recognition by the foreign powers including Turkey, said Dr. Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C. told Nervana Mahmoud for the Turkish Trends.
Turkey, its Islamist proxies and forces in war-torn Libya will do everything to make sure the upcoming presidential and legislative elections will not take place, Libya expert and BBC Expert Woman Terrorism and Radicalisation Aya Burweila said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced the beginning of a new era in the relations between Egypt and Turkey this week. Egypt’s lukewarm response to apparent olive branches from Turkey, on the other hand, has raised questions on the success of this proposed reset by Ankara.
Turkey, Egypt and Middle East expert Steven A. Cook, in a podcast with Nervana Mahmoud of Turkish Trends, said that in order for countries to mend ties, there were a number of Egyptian demands that Ankara needed to meet.
A declaration from 103 retired Turkish admirals raising concerns about the future of the Montreux Convention is potentially “gift from God” to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to Turkey expert Steven Cook.
But did Erdogan’s gift have unintended consequences?
With rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the debate about the convention has exposed how Erdoğan is now in an awkward position between his NATO allies and Russia. Will he be quick to lose his luck?
Nervana Mahmoud interviews Turkey expert Steven Cook for Turkish Trends