Turkey Archive

When U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his speech on Islam to a gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Riyadh last weekend, one head of state was notably absent among the dozens of kings, sultans, emirs, presidents and prime ministers in the audience. Turkey, one of the Muslim world’s most powerful states, chose to send its minister of foreign affairs, a much lower-ranking official than the top-level representatives in the lavish hall. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had recently visited Saudi Arabia and had met with Trump in Washington only days earlier, with the two men declaring the meeting a […]

As the Iraqi army comes closer to fully reconquering Mosul from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, questions are emerging about the future of relations between two of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Iran. Will the quest for influence in Iraq’s Sunni heartland lead to greater turbulence between Ankara and Tehran? Are they, as some warn, on an unavoidable collision course in Iraq? Turkey is worried that gains made by Iraq’s Shiite-majority government, which is friendly with Iran, only serve to expand Tehran’s influence over Sunni areas in northern Iraq. More worrying for Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan is the potential for a […]