PEOPLES

A chief advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has suggested that deputies should be assigned to represent citizens abroad after the April 16 referendum on whether to shift the current parliamentary system to an executive presidency. 

Police on April 6 intervened in a sit-in staged by a group of lawyers demanding the release of arrested colleagues in the daily Cumhuriyet case at Istanbul's Çağlayan courthouse, detaining eight of them.

Yesterday on April 5 I talked to the heads of three of Turkey's leading polling companies about the possible outcome of the April 16 referendum on whether to shift to an executive presidential system, as targeted by President Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti).

Before denouncing the EU as an "alliance of crusaders" that keeps "lying to Turkey" on April 2 in Ankara, President Tayyip Erdoğan was in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır on April 1 as a part of his "Yes" campaign for the April 16 on shifting the country to an executive presidential system. 

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said uncontrolled power for the president "will bring Turkey to disaster," ahead of the April 16 referendum on whether to shift the current parliamentary system to an executive presidency.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will focus on winning "yes" votes from women, city-based Kurds and city-based Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voters in the final weeks of campaigning for the referendum on shifting Turkey to an executive presidential system.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 28 paid an unusual visit to a tent belonging to the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in Istanbul's Sarıyer district, set up to promote a "no" vote ahead of the April 16 referendum on constitutional changes.

Yet another clash has erupted between the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and Europe, this time regarding the Venice Commission's highly critical report on the constitutional amendments to be voted on in the April 16 referendum. 

U.S. President Donald Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may meet after Turkey's April 16 referendum on whether to shift to an executive presidential system

Speaking to reporters on March 13, Erdoğan cited the U.S. practice of not meeting politicians from countries where a public vote is due to be held within 60 days. 

Kurdish politics in Turkey and elsewhere is a notoriously complicated acronym soup of allied and competing groups. "The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities" by Cuma Çiçek charts a course through this bewildering landscape, complicating simple, homogenous ideas of "the Kurds."