More than 800 years ago between April and May 1204, Constantinople (now Istanbul) was conquered by the ill-fated and failed Fourth Crusade. The city subsequently became the capital of a newly formed crusader state known as the Latin Empire. By 1204, the practice of crusading was over a century old. Under a Catholic Church […]
On Tuesday, 11 April, I visited Brussels to interview the European Parliament Rapporteur for Turkey Kati Piri MEP. Ms Piri is a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands and part of the parliamentary Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. As the Turkey Rapporteur, she is the parliament’s closest follower of […]
A new musical stage adaptation of Bliss or Mutluluk, a novel of the same name originally written by the politician, singer and artist Zülfü Livaneli, played at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, East London last week. A joint production with Istanbul’s experimental theatre Talimhane, this was an outstanding, emotive and powerful performance. This UK run […]
Today 68 years ago, the Republic of Turkey became the first Muslim-majority country to formally recognise the state of Israel, which had been founded in 1948. This recognition, signed by Turkish President İsmet İnönü on 28 March 1949, led to the opening of the first Turkish diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv in 1950. This […]
Today, 93 years ago on 3 March 1924, under the leadership of President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s Grand National Assembly passed three bills that would change the country irreversibly. Of these, the first abolished the Ministry of Religious Law and Pious Foundations, the second established a single education system, and the third—the most revolutionary […]
Feeling the chill of the Cold War, Turkey signed the Washington Treaty and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, commonly referred to as NATO, on 18th Feb. 1952 – exactly 65 years ago. Twelve founding members, among them the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Belgium, Iceland, France, and Italy, had originally signed the Washington or […]
In January 1877, the Constantinople ‘Tersane’ Conference, attended by the Great Powers including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, came to an end. The Conference had started in December 1876, and was intended to address the Ottoman Empire’s problems, commonly referred to by European politicians and diplomats as the “Eastern Question”. The year 1876 had […]
Rewind to the beginning of 2016. Ankara was at odds with many of the key actors in the Syrian conflict, including Washington and Tehran. And, after shooting down a Russian jet in November 2015, the temperature with Moscow was certainly below zero. Turkey became estranged from Iran and Russia because of its insistence on the […]
Today, 2nd Dec., marks the centenary of an historical event significant to both Britain and Turkey. On this day in 1916, the Russian Parliament publicly announced a secret agreement with Britain that would hand Istanbul to the Russians after the conclusion of the First World War. This deal is typical of wartime attitudes various European […]
