Turkey’s government is embroiled in a bitter dispute with secular-minded actors over freedom of expression in public theaters. Officials insist they respect the concept of artistic freedom, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has publicly derided stage actors as “Jacobins” who undermine traditional Turkish values.
For most of its 60 years as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey has been content with a supporting role. But now, with Ankara feeling increasingly confident, Turkish authorities are flexing their diplomatic and economic muscles within the Atlantic Alliance.
Social media has been a boon for democratization forces around the world, most notably in the Middle East and North Africa. But a recent tragedy in Turkey helps highlights the fact that social media also has a potentially dark side for democratization efforts.
More than a decade in the making, Istanbul’s Museum of Innocence, the brainchild of Turkey's Nobel Literature Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk, offers visitors a chance to reenter a politically turbulent period in Turkey’s recent history -- the 1960s and 70s.
The last time that Turkey sought to mediate between Iran and the international community over Tehran’s nuclear energy program, it ended in a diplomatic fiasco. Now, two years later, Turkey is trying again. Will the results prove any different?
An unofficial Turkish parliamentary investigation into physical and sexual abuse of Kurdish children in juvenile detention centers is raising rule-of-law concerns in Turkey.
For decades, Turkey was known for being a source of guest workers, especially those headed to Germany. Now, Ankara is grappling with a migrant-labor issue of its own.
ISTANBUL -- After the formation of the Turkish secular state on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, reference to the country's imperial era was generally frowned upon.
But the days of Turkey ignoring its past are history.
Turkey may be seen by many in the Middle East as a democratic role model, but inside the country, government critics assert that improper practices during pre-trial detention reveal a less-than-firm commitment to the rule of law on Ankara’s part.
A critically acclaimed film in Turkey about the murder of a gay man by his father is prompting Turkish society, once again, to examine its tolerance of differences.
