By Natalia Konarzewska
March 4, 2022
Turkey insists on maintaining close relations both with Russia and Ukraine, but this balancing act has become near-impossible to maintain after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A week into the invasion, Kyiv received a new batch of drones from Turkey that have already proved their effectiveness against the Russian forces. Even though Turkey will seek to maintain a balance as far as possible, its strong military ties with Ukraine speak of its geopolitical ambition to contain Russia. Turkey’s relation with Russia is transactional, while its commitment to the defense of Ukraine is an expression of Turkey’s strategic vision and its adherence to the geopolitical goals of the Western alliance. That will ultimately prove decisive.
By Gareth Jenkins
February 14, 2022
The January 29, 2022, resignation of Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül and his replacement by his predecessor Bekir Bozdağ marked another shift in the highly fluid power struggles within the apparatus of the Turkish state beneath the outwardly rigid patina of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s overarching hegemony.
By Sada Garibova
January 19, 2022
While economic experts predict that Turkey’s new economic model will inevitably send the Turkish economy into a deep recession and impoverish its population, the regime is undeterred, and its commitment to new, unorthodox economic and monetary policies is unwavering. Given the historical pattern, a popular backlash is unlikely, and it would in any case not be allowed to imperil the survival of the regime. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is fully backed by the nationalist cadres of the state bureaucracy. The collapse of the lira may ultimately be more likely to pave the way for a more entrenched, authoritarian regime than to boost the prospects of the opposition.
By Natalia Konarzewska
January 14, 2022
In mid-December 2021, Turkey and Armenia mutually appointed envoys for upcoming normalization talks. Turkey has wider, strategic reasons for seeking reconciliation with Armenia, and the shift in the balance of power in South Caucasus since the second Karabakh war in 2020 has removed an obstacle for the pursuit of these ambitions. At first glance, the new rapprochement process promises to be more successful than the last time, in 2009, but ultimately the success of the rapprochement will depend on the trajectory of the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even though Yerevan realizes that it stands to benefit from a normalization of relations with Turkey, there is nonetheless a risk that its conflict with Baku, and the fear that the Armenian public might not stomach what would appear to be concessions to Azerbaijan, will prevent the Armenian government from pursuing the normalization.
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.
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