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The devil you know
Turkey went to the polls on Sunday, and we found out that the desire for a change, which was obvious in results of June 2015 elections, had turned into a fear of change.…
1 out of every 40 companies established in Turkey is now Syrian
The leader of the trade with Syria in 2010 was Istanbul. Turkey’s exports to Syria reached its zenith that year at USD1.9bn. One third of that figure originated from…
How have Gaziantep’s exports to war-torn Syria quadrupled since 2011?
Turks seem to be fed up with the number of Syrian refugees coming to Turkey. According to a recent survey by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, 67 percent of Turks…
What will Erdoğan, Putin, Obama and Merkel discuss in Antalya?
The G20 comes to Turkey mid-November this year. As you know, Turkey chairs the G20 this year. World leaders will be meeting in Antalya in three weeks but I don’t sense…
The Syrian civil war has come to Turkey
Last weekend’s bomb attack was a rude awakening for Turks, who are now beginning to realize that the Syrian civil war has come to their doorstep. Turkey is now one of…
Intended for Europe, destined for MidEast
We are going through tough times. We lost some 100 citizens to two bombs that went off in Ankara on Saturday. We do not have definitive numbers yet but hundreds of…
Are we going through the Sevres syndrome all over again?
Being in Turkey these days feels like a permanent déjà vu. And not in a good way. Turks once again have that feeling of being encircled by enemies and threats. They feel…
Diverging paths: Turkey and Indonesia
Turkey is no Indonesia, Standard & Poor’s declared this week. But the two countries have many things in common. Both are composed of Muslim majorities, both are listed…
Misfortunes never come single
Comparisons are useful to pinpoint your place in the stream of events. These days, it’s often comparisons between two evils. You try to think about which problem is…
Which one is worse?
Is it the delay in the imminent policy decision by the Fed, America’s Central Bank? Or is it that in early 2016, Erdem Başçı, the governor of the Central Bank of Turkey,…
No Country for Economists
Is Turkey an interesting case of economic fluctuations? No. There is nothing mysterious about the slowdown in the Turkish economy. Anyone paying attention could and did…
China has what Turkey had in the late 1980s
I started my career as an economist at the Capital Markets Board of Turkey. It was the 1980s, I was fresh out of school and excited to be part of a milestone in my…