Turkey - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Turkey

Turkey

November 11, 2026

Ankara 9:44 pm

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People walk past a Bitcoin sign at the entrance of a cryptocurrency exchange office on Nov. 8, 2024, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Watchdog urges Turkey to tighten digital asset rules for $144B crypto economy

A review of Turkey’s crypto-asset regulations by the Financial Stability Board acknowledged significant progress made by local authorities but called for further measures to address potential risks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) and Central Bank Governor Sahap Kavcioglu attend a signing ceremony with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Nov. 24, 2021. ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images

Turkey’s banking watchdog chief submits resignation amid fund scandal

Turkey’s government is facing growing criticism over regulators’ failure to prevent a fund scandal involving more than $20 billion.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Explainer

Iran war pushes up coal use, complicating Turkey’s COP31 pledge

Turkey is asking world leaders at COP31 to back a global push to use more electricity, even as the Iran war has driven up natural gas prices and pushed some power producers back to coal.

Latest News

Turkey bars MP’s wife from travel after his fund scandal criticism: What to know

OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images

Steel factory explosion in western Turkey kills at least 16

A steel worker works in front of giant iron melting pot in Kardemir Iron and Steel Factory in Karabuk, northwestern Turkey, Aug. 26 2005. (TARIK TINAZAY/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Will Democrats block Trump’s push to deliver Turkey F-35s, lift sanctions?

MEHMET ESER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Barin Kayaoglu

By Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

Samuel Wendel

Senior Analyst, Middle East Business & Tech

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

Amberin Zaman

Chief Correspondent

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Jack Dutton

Chief Business Correspondent

In Bristol, reporting on regional business, climate change, AI, tech

Ezgi Akin

Associate Editor (Turkey)

In Ankara, reporting on diplomacy, EU-Turkey ties, NATO

Francesco Schiavi

In Bologna, reporting on security, defense, economy, governance

Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

An Israeli naval vessel is seen in the Mediterranean sea outside the port of Ashdod, Israel June 29, 2015. Israel said on Monday it had blocked a boat leading a four-vessel protest flotilla of foreign activists from reaching the Gaza Strip and forced the vessel to sail to the Israeli port. REUTERS/Amir Cohen - RTX1I9PS

Marianne flotilla reflects Turkey's changed Israel stance

With a new geopolitical setup in the Middle East and the regional focus on Syria rather than on Gaza, the Marianne flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli navy without "significant media coverage" for this protest.

Members of the Yazidi minority sect who were newly released are seen in a vehicle on the outskirts of Kirkuk April 8, 2015. More than 200 elderly and infirm Yazidis were freed on Wednesday by Islamic State militants who had been holding them captive since overruning their villages in northwestern Iraq last summer. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed - RTR4WJPO

Yazidis dream of Europe

About 20,000 Yazidis who have fled from the Islamic State and became refugees in Turkey are now hoping, perhaps in vain, to reach Europe.

A lottery ticket vendor reads a Turkish newspaper published with an headline reads "downfall" and a portrait of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey, June 8, 2015. Erdogan will meet Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday to discuss Sunday's election results during which the ruling AK Party lost its parliamentary majority. The elections have ushered in the biggest period of political uncertainty in Turkey since AK Party swept to power 13 years ago. REUTERS/Umit Bektas - RTX1FM5M

Post-election Erdogan cannot regain power he lost

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushes for snap elections, he may be disappointed with the results.

Search and rescue officers work at a damaged building at the site of blast in the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, near the Turkish-Syrian border, May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (TURKEY - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTXZLWH

Was Reyhanli attacked to oust Turkish spy chief?

Leaked court documents about the worst terror attack in Turkey have revealed that Turkish security forces failed to act on 13 official warnings from the intelligence service.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd R) meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (2nd L) at a hotel in Vienna, Austria June 27, 2015. Senior U.S. and Iranian officials said much hard work still needs to be done to bridge significant differences on an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear programme. REUTERS/Carlos Barria - RTX1I13O

Did Khamenei blur his own red lines on sanctions?

Supreme Leader Khamenei gives strong backing for Iran’s negotiating team heading into Vienna talks; Assad holds off on hitting Islamic State, for now; Israel forced to clarify position on Jabhat al-Nusra; Egypt seeks to counter Turkey’s role in Syria.

Demonstrators carry the Armenian flag during a torch-bearing march marking the centenary of the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2015. Armenia marked the centenary on Friday of a mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks with a simple flower-laying ceremony attended by foreign leaders as Germany became the latest country to respond to its calls for recognition that it was genocide. Turkey denies the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in what is now Turkey in 191

Will new Turkish government pursue Armenian opening?

Opening the Turkey-Armenia border would benefit both countries economically, but ongoing tensions and the results of the June 7 elections in Turkey do not bode well for such a move.

Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters stand near an Islamic State flag in Tel Abyad town, Raqqa governorate, June 16, 2015. With a string of victories over Islamic State, Syria's Kurds are proving themselves an ever more dependable ally in the U.S.-led fight against the jihadists and building influence that will make them a force in Middle Eastern politics. Aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurdish-led YPG militia may have dealt Islamic State its worst defeat to date in Syria by seizing the town

Kurds fight Kurds in Syria

The Islamic State may be a bitter enemy of the Kurdish forces in Syria, but many Kurds — mostly from Turkey — are fighting in the jihadist ranks.

Former Syrian Coalition head Ahmad al-Jarba (L) attends the opening session of a Syrian opposition conference, in Cairo, Egypt June 8, 2015. Syrian opposition members are meeting with Egyptian officials in Cairo to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria and the need for a united opposition. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany - RTX1FN3W

Cairo's shifting stance on Syrian crisis

Cairo and its regional ally Riyadh have not been seeing eye to eye when it comes to the Syrian crisis and ways to resolve it, amid bitterness on the part of Syrian opposition factions that accuse Cairo of not strongly contributing to finding a solution to the crisis.

High school students wearing Guy Fawkes masks take part in a protest against the education policies of the ruling AK Party as a tram drives by in Istanbul February 13, 2015. Education is the latest flashpoint between the administration of President Tayyip Erdogan, and secularist Turks who accuse him of overseeing creeping 'Islamisation' in the NATO member state. Parts of some regular schools have been requisitioned to create more places for students in "Imam Hatip" religious schools championed by Erdogan, w

Turkish judiciary halts school firings

Turkey’s top administrative court has canceled provisions that laid the ground for the purge of some 8,000 principals in public schools and their replacement with government partisans.

People gesture while others wave Kurdish flags during a gathering celebrating Newroz, which marks the arrival of spring and the new year, in Diyarbakir March 21, 2015. Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan called on Saturday for his militant group to hold a congress on ending a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state but stopped short of declaring an immediate halt to its armed struggle. Tens of thousands of Kurds gathered in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir to hear the message from Kurdi

Can PKK, Turkey’s Hezbollah reconcile?

Resurging violence between two old Kurdish adversaries in Turkey’s southeast, the PKK and the Islamist Hezbollah, has generated fears of renewed Kurdish fratricide in the region.

A special forces police officer takes security measures as he stands on top of a building where the portraits of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan (L), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and a Turkish flag are displayed in Istanbul, Turkey, June 3, 2015. Turkey holds a parliamentary election on June 7 that could reshape its political landscape. Erdogan hopes the result will help move Turkey towards a presidential system, while the pro-Kurdish opposition is aiming to enter parliament as a party for the first tim

After elections, Erdogan’s shadow still looms

Given his continuing hold over the AKP, negotiations for a coalition government could be stymied by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if developments take a turn he does not favor.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters in front of a mosque after Friday prayers in Istanbul, Turkey, May 29, 2015. Erdogan said the launch of Ziraat Bank's Islamic business should help to attract new funds to Turkey and urged other state lenders to help to triple Islamic banking's share of the market by 2023. Islamic finance has developed slowly in Turkey, the world's eighth most populous Muslim nation, partly because of political sensitivities and the secular nature of its laws. However,

'Bogus Muslims' exposed for 'fake it 'til you make it' attitude

Muslims faking sudden commitments to a religious lifestyle for political and financial gain are facing backlash from pious Muslims as well as criticism from secularists.