Turkey | openDemocracy

“Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.”

- Walter Benjamin, 1936

Turkey’s Syria quagmire takes a new turn

Firdevs Robinson 15 May 2013

Among the many questions raised by the recent attack, Turkey has been accused of intentionally neglecting border security to allow the Free Syrian Army and international jihadists to use Turkish soil along the border as a base.

Syrian crisis now a global affair

Ahmed E. Souaiaia 12 May 2013

The outcome of the Syrian crisis, no matter what that might be, will delimit the new Middle East in a way that will affect the entire world—not just Syria and the region

When none of your business is revolutionary

Ali Gokpinar 26 April 2013

Pigeon-holing citizens according to their religion is part of the armoury with which the Egyptian state controls its citizens. But there is a chink in the armour.

Media freedom in Turkey: just how bad is it?

Aslan Amani 25 April 2013

Turkey has more journalists in prison than any other country, and ranks low on indices of press freedom. Just how bad is the situation, and how can it be ameliorated?

Turkey’s recent Kurdish opening: opportunities and the challenges ahead

Selin Bölme and Müjge Küçükkeleş 23 April 2013

The opportunity for a peaceful settlement of Turkey's Kurdish question came as a surprise to many observers, announced as it was in the middle of a period of growing tension. But despite support by both parties, ambiguities that could undermine the whole process subsist.

Turkey’s unruly rule of law

Firdevs Robinson 17 April 2013

After ten years of the aggressive, “Islam and democracy” experiment, Turkey is increasingly being torn apart between contrasting world views and life styles.

A call to engender Turkey’s peace process

Yakin Erturk 17 April 2013

Turkey’s agenda for peace aims to overcome the decades-old Kurdish question and raise democratic standards. While welcoming this initiative, Yakin Ertürk questions whether the end of conflict will bring peace to women if gender equality issues are not adequately addressed

Demystifying Ocalan’s letter

Ali Gokpinar 1 April 2013

There is a remarkable rise of banal and campaigning Turkish nationalism. A tension between competing national identities might challenge Ocalan’s rhetoric and the new democratic state.

The complications of dispersing aid in Syria

Martin Armstrong 29 March 2013

Aid is ultimately dictated by the host government’s willingness to grant international access to a country. Martin Armstrong speaks to those who are trying to cope.

The Syrian irony for Turkey

Foti Benlisoy and Annalena di Giovanni 27 March 2013

Before the uprising, Erdoğan and Davutoğlu tried to turn Damascus and Aleppo into safe market havens. Perhaps Turkey still expects eventually to have the lion's share in a future reconstructed Syria, but the ruling AKP party may pay a high price for its regional policies.

The Cyprus Eurocrisis: the beginning of the end of the Eurozone?

Nicos Trimikliniotis 25 March 2013

EU accession in 2004 did little if anything to make runaway bankers accountable; on the contrary, the so-called institutional ‘independence’ of the Central Bank making the Governor accountable to the ECB rather than having any democratic accountability to the people who would be immediately affected, made the bankers more unaccountable.

Turkey's growing constitutional conundrum

Aslan Amani 22 March 2013

Why does Turkey need a new constitution and what makes it so difficult to draft one?

Are they democrats?

Ali Gokpinar 20 March 2013

The AKP has not persecuted journalists, so much as rather selectively targeted certain people and groups.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar ratchet up sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq

Zayd Alisa 27 February 2013

Iraq, a decade after the US-led invasion and one year after the end of the US occupation, is grappling not merely with an escalating sectarian crisis between the Shia-led government and an increasingly disaffected Sunni minority, but with an intensifying ethnic crisis fomenting in an increasingly defiant and heavily armed Kurdish Region.

The limitations of Turkish foreign policy

Ali Gokpinar 25 February 2013

The EU-Turkey accession negotiations slowed down not because Turkey was not interested but because Turkey demanded fair play in the negotiations.

This week's editor

Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

A social Europe must be a political Europe
Bo Stråth

As Europe is provincialized: a reply to Etienne Balibar
Sandro Mezzadra

European debate

A republican call for a basic income
Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark

Nuclear non-proliferation

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Mali - the plot thickens

Remote control war

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