Bülent Ecevit

A number of developments in the last few days, mostly moves by President Tayyip Erdoğan, might be signs that he has something big in mind at the planning stage.

A very interesting article on the Cyprus dispute:

By George K. Papadopoulos, Ph.D.

No Cyprus, no certain facilities to protect our supply of oil. No oil, unemployment and hunger in Britain. It is as simple as that.
UK’s PM Anthony Eden after the failed Suez operation, 1956 1

This year's May Day celebrations posed a big challenge to workers' unions in Turkey. Should they turn it into a show of force against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government? Or should they go back to pressing for their own rights and own agenda? Turkey's leading unions, DİSK, TÜRK-İŞ and KESK, opted for the second choice. 

The constitutional referendum once again turned the spotlight on opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli for the role he played in Turkey's political life. 

Turkey's impressive democratization process began in late 1999 after the European Union approved Ankara's full membership candidacy to the bloc at the historic Helsinki Summit. As a diplomatic correspondent who has been covering the troubled relationship between Turkey and the EU for more than two decades, I had the chance to observe all phases and all dimensions of this bitter process. 

The government-supported constitutional amendment will concentrate power in one pair of hands "to avoid strife," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, appealing to voters from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) as the referendum campaign gathered momentum. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Turkey violated freedom of expression due to a local court ruling in 2002 that fined former Turkish deputy Yücel Erdener for remarks criticizing the medical care given to late Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit.

A funeral has been held in Istanbul for Turkey's veteran lawmaker, Kamer Genç who died from cancer on Jan. 22.

When did our internationally-known photographer, Ara Güler, ever issue political declarations or ideological manifestos? 

After he took photographs of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and his family, Güler has been accused of being a "turncoat," of "quickly changing sides."

Problems between the president and the prime minister are at their lowest point in Turkey's modern history, Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has claimed, amid renewed debate on the government's desired shift to a presidential administrative system from the current parliamentary one.