Handan T. Satiroglu

There are still pieces of Turkey's shoreline that remain undiscovered, but droves of foreigners are fast gobbling it up. The Turkish coastline has witnessed a construction bonanza fueled by moneyed Europeans seeking a relatively affordable place in the sun. Much of Turkey's once pristine coastline has metamorphosed into a coastal suburbia. On Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, cranes and other construction machinery announce the foreign influx, which has created a backlash among Turkish nationalists.
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"Daddy, I thought you were coming home after Bayram," read somber headlines in newspapers across Turkey Oct. 10, capturing the sentiments of the daughters of a soldier killed by a PKK ambush in southeastern Turkey. The last two weeks have seen the assassination of 30 soldiers in the perilous southeastern border city of Sirnak. The latest surge in violence has Turks clamoring for a military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing a delicate decision.
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For almost a generation, wealthy and well-fed Europe has been bringing forth too few children to replenish its graying population. As states have begun to feel the demographic slip, European politicians have pondered how best to tackle the issue. Fearful of a future in which economies collapse, social ties weaken, and the elderly can no longer be sustained by paltry working-age populations, governments are doing whatever they can to encourage couples to have more children. more

"Let's be honest," European Commission President José Manuel Barroso recently told a Greek newspaper. "Turkey is not ready to become an EU member and the EU is not ready to accept Turkey as a member. Neither tomorrow, nor the next day." Despite the overwhelmingly positive European response to Erdogan's recent triumph at the polls, and calls to revamp Turkey's political and economic reforms by European leaders, one fact remains clear: Turkey's membership in the EU is as elusive as ever. more

The Turkish nation delivered its verdict last week, even taking the prime minister and his supporters by surprise. Turkey's parliamentary elections on July 22 resulted in a decisive victory for Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, of the Islamic-rooted party AKP. "Democracy has passed a very important test," Erdogan said in his victory speech. But last Sunday's results are far from being a vindication of democracy. Turkey is still a nation deeply polarized, and containing that polarization is the most daunting task facing the new government.
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The acrimonious contest between Turkey's pious and its Westernized secularists has reached a fever pitch in the past month over the nomination of Abdullah Gül, Turkey's pro-Islamic foreign minister, for the post of Turkish presidency. That nomination, which threatened to remove a bulwark against Islamist control of the country's government, was annulled in court. But a constitutional amendment to allow direct election of Turkey's president now sets up a July 22 vote that could determine the fate of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's legacy.
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Recent news about Turkey has been littered with reports about the spasms of violence between Turkish troops and militants of the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Party. Turks cite the U.S. invasion of Iraq as the most important factor in the explosive new outburst of Kurdish separatist sentiment. Indeed, despite a relative leveling of Turkish-American ties after the decline that followed the invasion of Iraq, Turkey's Kurdish issue continues to stand as a major roadblock on the path to a stronger alliance between the U.S. and Turkey. more

The indisputable father of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, accomplished great deeds in a short period of time. The greatest of these was the ease with which he weaved secularism into the fabric of a Muslim society. Today, Turkey's secularism is under threat. For the first time since 1973, Turks will go to the polls this year to elect both a president and a parliament. If Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins the presidency and his pro-Islamic party AKP regains a parliamentary majority, Islamists could redefine the Turkish state and society.
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Since shortly before the inception of the Turkish Republic, in 1923, a journalist has been murdered on average every 1.5 years in Turkey, columnist Oktay Eksi recently lamented in the Hurriyet newspaper. In the last 15 years alone, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "18 Turkish journalists have been killed for their work." Like a blow from an axe, the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink two weeks ago has cut yet another deep gash into Turkey's already embattled democratization and intellectual freedom. more

ANKARA, Turkey -- Masked by Turkey's 80-year Kemalist embrace of secularism, recent trends in Turkey reflect a hard fact: Beneath the surface of the West's most crucial ally in the Muslim world, a dismaying anti-Western blend of political Islam and nationalism is blossoming. A series of recent patriotic shows of force have revealed an increasing backlash in Turkey towards Western values. Even as Turkey aspires to join the European Union, the current pro-Islamic administration has made several attempts to roll back Turkey's brand of draconian secularism more

ANKARA, Turkey -- Not since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire -- the seat of the 400-year old Turkish Muslim caliphate -- have Europeans been so preoccupied with Turkey. As poor Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Africa flood the gates of Europe in search of work, the prospect of Turkey's accession into the EU has provoked the EU's most heated existential crisis to date. After a 41-year courtship, will Turkey talk Europe into waltzing her into the future? more