In its last meeting the Supreme Military Council selected General Ilker Basbug as the new Chief of General Staff of Turkish military (August 3). As a son of Macedonian immigrants, Basbug was born in a central Anatolian town of Afyon in 1943 and following his... MORE

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Turkey on August 14 in the latest in a series of high level contacts between the two countries against a backdrop of growing international pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. Both the United States and Israel have expressed... MORE

With Western eyes fixed on the clash between Russia and Georgia over the disputed enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the conflict is affecting neighboring countries’ oil shipments, particularly Azerbaijan and transit nation Turkey. There was a terrorist attack on August 5, two days before... MORE

On August 11 nine Turkish soldiers were killed when the truck in which they were traveling was struck by a mine laid by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Kemah county in the province of Erzincan in southeast Turkey. It was the largest death toll... MORE

The outbreak of fighting between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia has demonstrated the cost of Ankara’s often confused attempt at achieving a balance between becoming a regional player in the Caucasus and the need to maintain a working relationship with Moscow. Many modern Turks... MORE

On August 5 there was an explosion and subsequent fire on a section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline running through eastern Turkey, resulting in the flow of oil through the pipeline being halted. By August 7 the fire was reported to be under control,... MORE

Turkey continues to announce new armament programs that involve the development and production of a “Turkish brand” of major weapons systems. On July 29, under a technology cooperation deal signed between Turkey and South Korea (ROK), Turkey initiated a $500 million project for the design,... MORE

As Europe frets over the political implications of Gazprom’s increasing presence in the EU market, another Russian energy company has quietly made an inroad into hydrocarbon-starved Turkey. On July LUKoil’s president Vagit Alekperov announced in Istanbul that his firm had agreed to purchase Turkey’s Akpet,... MORE

On August 4 Turkish President Abdullah Gul formally approved the appointment of Land Forces Commander General Ilker Basbug as the chief of the Turkish General Staff (TGS) to replace the outgoing General Yasar Buyukanit, who will step down on August 30 after reaching the compulsory... MORE

On July 31 Turkish President Abdullah Gul formally ratified the appointment of Professor Ali Birinci (born in 1947) as head of the state-run Turkish Historical Association (TTK) to replace the incumbent Professor Yusuf Halacoglu (born 1949), who had held the position from 1993 until his... MORE