Aykan Erdemir

Outpaced by Events

Shared Interests

European Union flags. Photo: EPA-EFE

In an exclusive opinion piece for Balkan Insight, the foreign ministers of the EU's 'Trio Presidency' - Germany, Portugal and Slovenia - reaffirm the EU's commitment to enlargement and opening accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia.

The Islamic State terror group was largely defeated through a coordinated international effort almost two years ago.

A joint call for an urgent recalibration of US strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean is made by former US ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman and Aykan Erdemir, a former MP with Turkey's Republican People's Party (CHP) and current director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, in a newly published report on the region.

More than 30 Western nationals are currently imprisoned in Turkey, and they are viewed by some as pawns to be used to extract concessions in bilateral relations with the United States and European Union countries.

The assets of former main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Aykan Erdemir were seized by the authorities in Turkey on Dec. 6.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on Nov. 28 issued a detention warrant for former main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Aykan Erdemir, on the grounds that he provided “fake reports” as evidence for the U.S. case of Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab

Meral Aksener doesn’t run from fights. Turkey’s former interior minister is known informally as asena, or she-wolf. When the country’s military took steps in 1997 to remove the government from power, she took a stand against its leaders.

In a further blow to Turkey’s spotty global image, the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called March 8 for Turkey to come under its formal scrutiny, a status reserved for members that are deemed to be backsliding on democracy. Nine countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Russia are currently on that hook.

Dr. Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament from 2011 to 2015, has joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) as a non-resident fellow, the foundation announced in a written statement on June 9.