Tag: Turkey
Turkey and the future of the Eastern Mediterranean
“Instability in the Eastern Mediterranean” is a commonplace phrase, and with good reason. In parallel with the civil wars in Syria and Libya, the power play between the United States and Russia, the Israeli-Palestinian...
Turkey’s Hagia Sophia opens as mosque with Erdoğan reciting first prayer
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan joined hundreds of Muslim worshippers in Istanbul on Friday for the first prayers from the Koran in nearly 90 years inside the Hagia Sophia, once one of Christianity’s most...
Turkey’s mad sultan
Last week, in defiance of Pope Francis and the entire Christian world, Sultan Erdoğan’s dream became reality. Images depicting the Archangel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary and Christ Pantocrator, along with numerous other famous mosaics...
Is Erdoğan’s decision to convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque a sign of...
The decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to convert the Hagia Sophia Cathedral turned museum in Istanbul back into a mosque reinforces his long-held plans for promoting Islamic supremacy and lifts his sagging...
Rumblings of regional strife in the Caucasus could make its way to Israel
One of the most unexpected, lesser known and not often reported bilateral relationships is the ties between Israel and Azerbaijan. While both countries are small, Israel is constantly garnering global headlines and attention for...
Tel Aviv court decision is a setback to dubious accusations against NSO
Since at least 2018, Amnesty International had gone on a mission trying to expose the Israeli cybersecurity Pegasus software producer NSO Group/Q Cyber Technologies of allegedly playing a role in facilitating human-rights abuses, in...
Turkey’s dual message on the reversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque
Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reversal last week of a 1934 law converting the Hagia Sophia Mosque into a museum, his personal Twitter account and that of his office emphasized different aspects of...
Erdoğan: Hagia Sophia ‘resurrection’ harbinger for Al-Aqsa ‘liberation’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed on Friday that the “resurrection” of the ancient Hagia Sophia church in Istanbul as a mosque bodes well for the “liberation” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. He...
What is Israel’s next move as Turks and Saudis duel over Jerusalem?
Tensions have run increasingly high between the Jordanians and Saudis on one side, and the Turks and Qataris on the other over control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
“Turkey’s neo-Ottominism in its foreign policy...
Erdoğan is driving a wedge between Europe and the Middle East
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is using the chaos of civil war in Libya to carve out a new Turkish power base in the Maghreb. Erdoğan’s ambitions in North Africa will not only disrupt...