Sibel Utku Bila has been writing for Al-Monitor since January 2013. She is a freelance journalist based in Ankara who has covered Turkey for 15 years. She was a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) from 1999 to 2011, and articles she wrote during that period were published in many newspapers around the world. She has also worked as an editor at the Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest English-language newspaper.
Al-Monitor: Why did you decide to become a journalist?