Current Analysis Turkey's Tentative Opening to Kurdishness In December 2003, Osman Baydemir was finishing his first semester of English-language instruction in San Francisco when he received a phone call suggesting it might be an opportune time for him to return to Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeastern region. Somewhat reluctant to abandon Nicole F. Watts • 7 min read
MER Article Transgender Bolero I remember seeing her. What I can’t remember is not seeing her. For the moment I saw her she was everywhere. Perhaps, unlike the rest of us, she was made of fluid and did not fit into any corporeal frame meant for the solidified. Or perhaps it was her Elif Shafak • 11 min read
MER Article Voices from Turkey's Southeast Emerging through the clouds at 15,000 feet, the wheat-colored landscape below looked bone-dry, although the previous week’s snow had made roads in the southeastern Turkish towns of Batman and Siirt impassable. Fortunately for Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), an early taste of spring had warmed Marcie J Patton • 11 min read
Current Analysis Turkey's Dangerous Game During his diplomatic attempts to avert the war now underway in Iraq, Abdullah Gul, until recently prime minister of Turkey and now foreign minister, said that he was suffering from sleepless nights. Today Gul's body language signals his distress at the deadlock faced by his neo-Islamist Justice and Yuksel Taskin, Koray Caliskan • 10 min read
Current Analysis Litmus Test Hours before chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix briefed the UN Security Council on January 27, Turkey's deputy prime minister protested that the Bush administration would proceed toward military confrontation regardless of Blix's findings. "You'll declare war against an Iraq...that has taken Yuksel Taskin, Koray Caliskan • 9 min read
Current Analysis Poetic Injustice In its war against terrorism, the United States has trumpeted its intentions to spread democracy in a region where there is little. Many around the globe remain skeptical about whether toppling leaders is an effective method for cultivating a respect for the rule of law and a liberalization of the p Ian Urbina • 3 min read
Current Analysis Washington Pushes Turkey Toward "The Red Line" Top Pentagon brass may have doubts about the feasibility of the circulating war plans for Iraq, but George W. Bush's envoys have convinced Turkish decision-makers that a US military operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime is inevitable. An official document recently leaked from Turkish Prime Minister Ertugrul Kurkcu • 6 min read
Current Analysis Turkey's Ecevit When Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit arrives in Washington, DC this week to meet with President George W. Bush he will come bearing a symbolic gift: a replica of a 16th century Koran, beautifully embroidered and written with real gold lettering. The original of this Koran comes from the Topkapi Ertugrul Kurkcu • 7 min read
Current Analysis Desperately but Deliberately, Turkey Joins Bush's War On November 1 the Turkish government, relying on an October 10 parliamentary decision "to deploy troops in other countries and host foreign troops in Turkey," lent a flesh and bone dimension to its rhetorical support for the US-led war in Afghanistan. Ankara's decision to send " Ertugrul Kurkcu • 6 min read
MER Article In the Shadow of Kurdish The arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the militant Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), at the beginning of 1999 and the almost instantaneous wave of protest across Europe, in Australia and later within Turkey briefly increased the prominence of the Kurdish struggle for autonomy in Turkey. As one o Joan Smith/Kocamahhul • 11 min read
Current Analysis Almost Unnoticed When Turkey sent 10,000 soldiers into northern Iraq in late December 2000, the event passed almost unnoticed by the international media. For the majority of ordinary Kurds, Turkish incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan have become routine. As on previous occasions, Turkish special troops crossed the border to hunt fighters of Isam al-Khafaji • 6 min read
Current Analysis Turkey's Operation "Return to Life" During the week of December 19-26, 2000, 10,000 Turkish soldiers violently occupied 48 prisons to end two months of hunger strikes and "death fasts" by hundreds of political prisoners. The hunger strikers are protesting the state's plan to transfer its prisoners from large wards to Murat Paker • 6 min read
