Monthly Archives: May 2012

MEXICO CITY — The question of what the prevailing legacy would be of the 2012 Mexican presidency of the G-20, which is made up of the major economies of the world that account for some 80 percent of world trade, … Continue reading →

Guadalajara — Mexico is a country that stands apart from Turkey at an almost 12,000-kilometer distance, yet amazingly Turkish and Mexican cultures seem to pivot around very similar attributes. Both are family-centered societies with religion playing an important role in … Continue reading →

Just as it is unusual for the Turkish military to maintain a multi-billion dollar lucrative business enterprise called the Turkish Armed Forces Assistance Center (OYAK), a kind of pension fund with special privileges and exceptions in the law at the … Continue reading →

I dined with late Necmettin Erbakan, former leader of the Felicity Party (SP) and father of political Islam in Turkey, in his private residence in the Balgat district of Ankara, only two months before he passed away on Feb. 27 … Continue reading →

During a welcome speech for Turkish visitors over lunch in Berlin last week, the German government’s commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid at the Federal Foreign Office, Markus Loening, kindly mentioned how important it is for Turkey to … Continue reading →

I was embedded this week with a delegation of Turkish members of Parliament that was invited by the German government to have talks with officials about how the investigations into the neo-Nazi murders of 10 people, eight of them ethnic … Continue reading →

It was certainly a memorable dinner on the night of May 5, 2009, at the Swiss Hotel in Ankara where Turkey’s newly appointed foreign policy chief Ahmet Davutoğlu made his first appearance in an international gathering after taking the oath … Continue reading →

It is not being discussed out in the open yet in the Turkish capital but even the remote possibility of an emerging “country of Alawites/Nusayris” in the Mediterranean after the breakup of Syria along ethnic/sectarian lines has become a source … Continue reading →