Turkey’s permanent state of crisis

However, Erdogan has a problem: Whereas Ataturk came to power as a military general, Erdogan has a democratic mandate to govern. Ataturk’s Turkey was rural and only 10 percent of the country was literate at the time, with most educated people supporting his agenda. Erdogan’s Turkey is 80 percent urban and nearly 100 percent literate, and many well-educated Turks oppose his agenda.

Turkish imams spied on Gülen sympathizers in Romania as well

A report published by The Black Sea news website on Saturday revealed that imams from Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) spied on people sympathetic to Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen and the movement he inspired in Romania as well.

Turning wedding excess into act of charity

The average wedding in the United States costs about $28,400. Ours was $7 — the $2 license, $5 for a Justice of Peace, plus gas for the car we eloped in. This fall we will have been married 66 years, which comes out to about 11 cents a year, if you include the gas.

Corruption investigation: Questions that will hound PM Erdoğan

Everyone is wondering now what is behind the corruption investigation, and the first “suspect” to come to many minds is the Islamist Gülen movement. Tensions between this group and the AKP have been rising over the years, and boiled over recently due to the prep-school issue – a matter that has received wide media coverage.

The Gülen movement denies this but the vitriol flying between daily Zaman, which is close to Gülen, and Yeni Şafak, which is staunchly pro-AKP, is enough to give one a sense of the bitter struggle involved.

The story of the boy who cried wolf

The Sabah newspaper greeted the news of the 10-hour National Security Council (MGK) meeting with the headline “Parallel structure added to red book.” But this was, of course, a complete lie. For a long time now, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been indicating that the Hizmet movement — which he refers to as the “parallel structure” — would be officially added to the National Security Strategy Concept Paper as a “domestic threat.” This is a part of his personal vendetta and Erdoğan has kept up this propaganda war even as president of Turkey.

Turkey’s Armenian Community: We are ready to be cultural bridge between people of Turkey, US

YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN Archbishop Aram Ateşyan, deputy patriarch of the Armenian Patriarchate, based in İstanbul, told Sunday’s Zaman after returning from the Los Angeles Anatolian Cultures and Food Festival that Armenians are ready to be a bridge between the people of Turkey and the United States. “And having food at the festival makes it all […]