Güven Sak, PhD
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The price of a leaderless world
In times of great crisis, there are always those trying to leverage suffering for personal gain. It is the job of government to try to prevent that from happening as…
Lessons from Turkey’s refugee crisis for dealing with COVID-19
Any economy, be it rice farming or high finance, relies on people working together. The COVID-19 pandemic has put an abrupt stop to this. Countries around the world are…
Just how bad is COVID-19 for Turkey's economy?
Last week, the only thing Turks were talking about was Idlib. The coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, was an exotic news story from distant lands. Since the outbreak has been…
Unpleasant refugee arithmetic with the EU
The issue of forced migration and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is perhaps the most defining problem of our age, and the civil war in Syria is its most typical…
Why Brexit is an Opportunity for Turkey
Brexit, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson likes to say, is done. The British have about a year to negotiate the deal that will determine their future relationship with the…
Europe’s geopolitical power and Turkey
Someone asked an awkward question the other day: “What does a geopolitical commission mean for Turkey?” He was talking about the new EU Commission President Ursula von…
Trump's Israel-Palestine Plan is a patchwork of failed attempts
Looking for something positive happening in Turkey lately? Well, Wikipedia is back as of January 2020. It was shameful that for years we had to use workarounds to use…
Israelis are back in Turkey after a lost decade
When we speak of the recent history of Turkish-Israeli relations, two dates stand out. The first is Jan. 30, 2009, when then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was on a…
Mr. Michel comes to Ankara
The President of the European Council, Mr. Charles Michel was in Zagreb, Croatia the other day, as that country took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the…
Mind the gap in 2020
I see a huge gap between Turkey’s daily political rhetoric and the aspirations of its ordinary citizens. Day-to-day politics is often about grievances, how Turkey’s…
Refugees still left in the cold
Last week the Global Refugee Forum was convened in Geneva to put the refugee situation under the spotlight. It was the first of its kind to be organized by the United…
How “The White Man’s Burden” Endures in Trump
This week, President Trump pardoned three US officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. It made me think of Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden,” that…