Weekly Turkey Report: Third Week Of April – You can kill someone, but you cannot erase them
Executive Summary:
New details have emerged in the investigation into the disappearance six years ago of Gülistan Doku, a university student in Tunceli (Dersim). A confidential witness has alleged that Doku was raped, became pregnant, and was subsequently shot in the head and killed by the Governer’s...
At the start of the now on-hold US-Israeli war against Iran on February 28, 2026, this author speculated on whether or not the United States and Israel would be able to entice the Iranian Kurds’ small, poorly armed, and divided militias numbering possibly 6-10,000 fighters—largely sheltering just across the border from Iran in northern Iraq where they had been chased years earlier by the...
Trump’s New National Security Strategy (NSS):
Its Implications for U.S.-Turkiye, Kurdish, and Middle East Relations
Trump’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) abruptly posted in the middle...
Recep Tayyip Erdogan—Turkey’s longtime leader as prime minister (2003-2014) and subsequently as president (2014-)—infamously once declared that “democracy is like a train; you get...
Two weeks ago, I again visited Iraqi Kurdistan—often referred to as the Iraqi Kurdistan Government (KRG)—to deliver the keynote address on “Kurdish Identity” at...
Turkey’s Renewed Balance-of-Power Policy among the Global Powers
Arguably the superpower of the entire world in the sixteenth century under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the...
The Caucasus is a relatively small, but geostrategically significant region between the Black and Caspian Seas, athwart Europe and Asia, at the northern edge...
Although Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been roundly criticized by many observers including this one for backsliding on democracy in his own country,...
At least three developments are driving recent Turkish domestic politics.
1. The crackdown against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political opposition has become so severe ...
