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‘SINK OR SWIM’: TIME FOR A TWO-WAY RE-ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN TURKEY AND THE EU
EU-Turkey relations were put on hold before the summer awaiting approval by European Union (EU) Member States to restart negotiations on the basis of European Commission’s annual Turkey progress report. For the first time
Read More »50 YEARS OF EU-TURKEY RELATIONS: TALK THE TALK AND WALK THE WALK
12th September 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the Ankara Agreement, signed in 1963 in Ankara, hence its name. The agreement established an association between Turkey and the then European Economic Community (EEC) signaling
Read More »TURKEY: A DIFFICULT COUNTRY FOR JOURNALISTS
Which country jails the most journalists? You could easily think of a theocratic regime in Middle East, communist countries or a dictatorial-rule country as the correct answer but in fact according to many different
Read More »ERGENEKON COUP PLOT TRIAL: REGIME CHANGE THROUGH LAW
The Ergenekon coup plot trial, which is considered as the most important legal battle in recent Turkish history, reached an end yesterday (05.08.2013) after Istanbul’s 13th High Criminal Court handed down severe punishments, including
Read More »EU-TURKEY RELATIONS AFTER GEZİ: ANOTHER HALT OR AN INCENTIVE TO REVIVE TURKEY’S MORIBUND ACCESSION PROCESS?
In my previous article I was to a certain extent optimistic over a positive breakthrough in EU-Turkey relations in 2013. However, the way Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP members (with a few exceptions)
Read More »THE NEED FOR ‘THIRD WAY’ IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Yesterday, Egyptian Army made a coup d’état and took the control of the country against the first democratically elected Islamist-oriented President Mohammed Morsi. What happened yesterday in Egypt shows once again that there is
Read More »TURKISH SPRING: OCCUPY GEZİ
A small environmentalist protest that started on 28 May 2013 in order to protect one of the rare green areas in Taksim called “Gezi Park” surprisingly turned into a massive social movement in Turkey
Read More »THE ARAB SPRING: A CONSPIRACY THEORY OR NATION’S WILL?
Revolts did not knock on the door, they just sneaked in the Arab region, toppling some regimes while shaking the thrones of others. Analyses began to heap in an attempt to examine this state
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