Turkey’s policy in the Black Sea region is the result of not only a complex relationship with Russia but also of a difficult relationship with the West. In particular, US policy in the Middle East has a major impact on how Ankara positions itself in the Black Sea region. An important feature...

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony in June after being sworn in for the third time as the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised the nation that his policies in the coming five years would "crown the second century of the republic with the Century of Türkiye". Turkey has...

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria was overthrown by a rebel alliance led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The collapse of the family dictatorship was made possible by shifts in regional and international power dynamics. Key factors included Turkish support for the rebels, the...

President Biden’s term is coming to an end. Turkish-American relations have reached a low, with Erdoğan noting that Biden is the first US president with whom he has had no meaningful dialogue. The Erdoğan government believes this is due to the Biden administration’s “overemphasis” on...

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria was overthrown by a rebel alliance led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The transitional government under Ahmad al-Sharaa now faces enormous economic, social and political challenges. It has yet to establish control over the country as a whole; and...

The techno-geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States has intensified in recent years. Turkey's souring relations with the US over the past decade has prevented the former from reaping the spoils of the Sino-US tech war as an American ally. Ankara has its own ambitions in the...

Mittlere Mächte sind einflussreiche Akteure in der internationalen Politik. Auf den Angriffskrieg Russlands gegen die Ukraine oder auf den Gaza-Krieg reagierten gewichtige Staaten Lateinamerikas oder Afrikas - so Brasilien oder Südafrika - nicht im Einklang mit westlicher Politik. Die zwölf...

The Ukraine crisis poses two particularly uneasy questions for Turkey: How to uphold a power balance in the Black Sea? And how to manage its relations between Russia, Ukraine and the West? So far, Ankara’s policy towards Moscow consists of both deterrence and dialogue. In regards deterrence,...

Managing irregular migration is a focal point of EU-Turkey relations today. European perspectives on this issue, for the most part, are split into two camps: a "caring" one, which concentrates on the well-being of refugees, and a "concerned" one, which focusses on the external border security of...

The EU and Germany have set themselves ambitious climate and energy policy targets. Taking into account the need to reduce emissions from all sectors of the economy, they now have a different perspective on the energy situation in the Eastern Mediterranean than a few years ago.