Turkey Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the world. Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called women who work “half persons” and “deficient,” sparking outrage among many liberal Turks, though his statement resonated with the country’s conservative majority. In an email interview, Melinda Negrón-Gonzales, an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire, discusses women’s rights and gender equality in Turkey. WPR: What is the current status of women’s rights and gender equality in Turkey? Melinda Negrón-Gonzales: Generally, Turkey lags behind its […]

The harrowing image last month of a Turkish police officer standing over the Russian ambassador he just shot, while blaming Moscow for the devastation in Syria, captures a key foreign policy challenge for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump: How can he attempt to stabilize the Middle East by bringing conflicts to a close, rather than letting Russia and Iran lead the region into further cycles of repression and violence under the rubric of fighting terrorism? Trump’s current defense priority—“to crush and destroy” the so-called Islamic State—plays right into Russian and Iranian machinations, with their selective definitions of terrorism and scorched-earth tactics. […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. In 2000, the wealthiest 1 percent of Turks owned 38 percent of Turkey’s total wealth. Today, despite a decade and a half of solid economic growth, the top 1 percent controls around 55 percent of total wealth. In an email interview, Aysen Candas, an associate professor at Bogazici University, discusses income inequality in Turkey. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Turkey, what are the latest trends in terms of increasing or lessening inequality, and […]

The fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo in Syria last month was a stunning personal blow for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government had openly backed Syrian rebel groups after the civil war began in 2011. Losing the rebels’ self-styled “capital of the revolution” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies is an insurmountable setback for years of Turkish regime-change efforts in Syria. But there is a silver lining for Turkey. After Aleppo, Ankara can focus all its diplomatic, military and political efforts on pursuing its more immediate national security interests in northern Syria: fighting the so-called Islamic State […]