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NATO is now being expanded after all. This is good news for the alliance, very good news for the Turkish president - and bad news for Vladimir Putin. Sometimes it's the small, tedious gestures and conversations that add up to bring about the greatest progress. Quite a few of these were undertaken before the NATO summit in Madrid, which begins on Wednesday. First, the White House reported a phone call between US President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Then Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, followed up with the announcement that the two would meet in Madrid for bilateral talks. At a joint meeting with Erdoğan, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, even before all delegations from the 30 member countries had even arrived, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tried to make some progress towards a compromise. And what a distance they covered. Late on Tuesday evening there was sudden excitement at t...

Concerns about a troop deployment on the Ukrainian border continue to escalate. Russia completes a maneuver. Johnson, Blinken and Erdoğan are trying to talk. According to Russia, it has completed a military exercise involving more than 6,000 soldiers. The exercises took place in the south of the country, for example in the Rostov and Volgograd regions, and air force units from the southern military district were involved, as the Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced. In addition, 20 warships of the Black Sea Fleet have returned to naval bases in Novorossiysk and on the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. However, Poland sees signs that Russia will increase its future military presence in Belarus. The planned maneuvers by Russian and Belarusian troops there in February are known, said Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau during a visit to the Estonian capital Tallinn. But his ministry is even observing "tendencies that may indicate that we will be ...

As a member of the Council of Europe, Turkey would have to implement its request to release Osman Kavala. But the government refuses. What's next? Despite the threat of sanctions by the Council of Europe, Turkey does not want to release the imprisoned cultural promoter Osman Kavala from prison. A Council of Europe spokesman said the country stuck to this stance until a response deadline expired on Wednesday. The Council of Europe in Strasbourg recently initiated infringement proceedings against its member country Turkey in a historically almost unique step. Ankara was asked to provide feedback on this by Wednesday at midnight.  This statement had been received, but its exact content was secret. It is completely open whether sanctions will actually follow or whether Turkey will even be excluded from the Council of Europe. This would initially require several intermediate steps. Israeli Police Spied On Its Citizens The background to the proceedings against Turkey is the constant refu...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan exchanges finance minister again In the midst of a serious currency crisis, the Turkish president separates from his finance minister. He was only in office for a year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is under pressure because the national currency is falling. He is trying to counteract this with a change in personnel: Finance Minister Lütfi Elvan will be replaced by Nureddin Nebati, according to an official announcement. Elvan had only held the office since November 2020, when he was appointed finance minister following the resignation of Erdogan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak. The Turkish lira had recently crashed faster and faster, and an interview by the state broadcaster TRT with the president on Tuesday evening, in which Erdogan had promised lower interest rates until the elections planned for 2023, caused additional pressure. On Wednesday, the Turkish central bank intervened in the foreign exchange market to support the local currency, the lira, but ...

The rumors about Recep Tayyip Erdogan's health don't stop. Even if the Turkish president is not as sick as it is said, his power is dwindling. "Erdogan is said to have died." The rumor spread in TurkeyQuickly a few days ago, right after the president had a meeting of his party, the Islamic-conservative AKP, canceled and was not seen for half a day. Party friends are said to have circulated it in chat groups, was learned in Ankara behind closed doors, the government itself did not really comment.  Instead, his head of communications, Fahrettin Altun, published a short video hours later: Erdogan with his head bowed, walking a few steps on a rain-soaked reception carpet. No information as to when or where it should have been, just the words: "Trust the friend and fear the enemy ..." - shortly afterwards it was said that 30 people who had tweeted about the rumor were being investigated for insulting the president. It is well known that those who have been told o...

The diplomatic crisis between Erdogan and the West has been resolved for the time being. But there is more to it: internationally documented human rights. And the future of Turkey. Erdogan's threats can no longer be relied on either. Last weekend the Turkish President threatened to have ten Western ambassadors, including the German one, deported as "undesirable persons". But after several haunting phone calls between Ankara , Washington and Berlin and a reassuring tweet from the US embassy in Ankara, Erdogan relented: expulsion canceled. But is that also the end of the crisis? Not at all. Recep Tayyip Erdogan had wanted to expel the ambassador, because she urged him to comply with a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR): Turkey should release the detained 2,017 Turkish cultural sponsor and philanthropist Osman Kavala. The Turkish judiciary initially accused Kavala of inciting the Gezi protests and, more recently, of participating in the attempted coup in 2...

Human rights activist Osman Kavala has been in Turkish custody without judgment for years. Diplomats from European countries had asked for his immediate release. In the dispute over the imprisoned Turkish human rights activist Osman Kavala, Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the German ambassador, the US ambassador and eight other ambassadors declared "undesirable persons".  Erdoğan said that he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to declare the diplomats persona non grata "as soon as possible". The ambassadors made a joint appeal earlier this week to demand the release of Kavala, which aroused the anger of the Turkish government. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs then summoned the ambassadors of Germany and nine other countries, including the USA, France, Canada and Denmark, because of the demand. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu had said that a recommendation by the ambassador to the judiciary in an ongoing process was unacceptable. Kavala has been detai...