President Erdoğan has finally sharpened his criticism against Israel. In a speech delivered in parliament to his fellow party members this week, Erdoğan portrayed the events in Gaza as a matter of cross and crescent, drawing parallels to the Crusades that ravaged the Levant in the Middle Ages. Moreover, he not only labeled Israel as a terror state committing genocide, but also reiterated that Hamas is not a terrorist organization.

Middle Eastern governments are struggling to manage public anger and are calling for a ceasefire. Turkish leaders have also expressed their discontent with the war, primarily directed at Israel. Although the conflict in Gaza may impede Turkey's efforts to normalize relations with Israel and the West, the Turkish government also derives some benefits from the war.

This week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered two passionate speeches, strongly criticizing the Israeli government. This is not his first critique of Israel since the recent outbreak of the Israel-Palestine crisis, which began on October 7.

In this current crisis, Turkey has pursued a diplomatic approach aimed at de-escalation, facilitating humanitarian aid access for Palestinian civilians. Nevertheless, the mounting tension, especially if Israel were to launch a ground operation in Gaza, could once again imperil the ongoing normalization efforts between the two countries.

The typical pattern for the Turkish government, whenever there is a high-profile terrorist attack on its soil, is as follows: issuing a firm condemnation of terrorism, conducting numerous arrests of individuals allegedly linked to the organization blamed for the attack, and launching airstrikes against facilities of terrorist organizations in Syria or Iraq.

Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 has mostly received a welcoming reaction in Turkey. While President Erdogan has called on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to exercise restraint, other Turkish political leaders have mostly supported the Palestinians. They deliberately avoided criticizing Hamas militants for violence against Israeli civilians.

The Turkey–EU Customs Union, established in 1995, has been a defining feature of trade relations between Turkey and the European Union. Over the past three decades, the global economic landscape has evolved significantly, necessitating a modernization of the agreement to address new trade realities, regulatory developments, and emerging geopolitical challenges.

'A gift from God' was one of Erdoğan's first descriptions related to coup attempt in July 15. At first no one realized that God's gift meant a chaotic environment in which he needed to declare a national emergency with no checks and balances and then transform Türkiye’s parliamentary democracy into an executive presidency.

This submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) highlights severe issues undermining the integrity of Türkiye's judiciary, particularly focusing on rampant judicial corruption and impunity as well as human rights abuses which they facilitate. Based on the most recent incidents of corruption concerning members of the judiciary who serve in courts in Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, this report seeks to examine the high-level corruption within the judiciary and the Turkish government’s failure or even willful ignorance in addressing it.

This report focuses on Turkey's prominence as an emerging market for cocaine trafficking and organized crime in the last decade. Cocaine production in Latin America has dramatically increased since 2013, and Turkey’s status as an emerging market has attracted the attention of Latin American government officials on the front lines of the cocaine trade.

This report sets out to provide a comprehensive analysis of the tactics employed by the Erdoğan administration to achieve repressive goals abroad and the vulnerabilities and how they are enabled by the AML and CFT regulation in place.

This submission highlights the ongoing systematic actions and omissions by Turkish authorities against the so-called members of the Gulen Group, framed as crimes against humanity. It demonstrates the violations of recommendations that even Türkiye has supported.