The Uludere Air Raid and Systemic Gaps in Turkey’s Intelligence Infrastructure

When smugglers were mistaken for militants in southeastern Turkey on December 28, 2011, a Turkish air raid killed 35 civilians who were carrying fuel across the Turkish-Iraqi border near the village of Ortasu, in the Uludere district. In the following days, media reports hinted that the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT – Turkey’s national intelligence organization) might have provided the military with misleading information in relation to the nature of expected movements across the border, resul...

The Georgia Crisis and Russia-Turkey Relations

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The August 2008 Russia-Georgia war has triggered some major shifts in regional geopolitics. The Caucasus crisis also directly affected the relationship between the two main regional powers – Russia and Turkey. Even before the Georgia war, the relations between Moscow and Ankara were quite complex – combining the elements of largescale cooperation and subtle competition.

The ambivalent situation which existed in the South Caucasus before Au...

Turkey’s Law on Military Service Exemption

On November 30, the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed a law that will allow citizens born before 1983 to avoid military service upon the payment of an exemption. Starting by January 1, 2012, those who comply with the requirements will have a six month-period to pay the equivalent of $16,000 in order to be fully exempted from enlistment (Today’s Zaman, November 30).On the week preceding the Parliament’s vote, the bill, brought forward by the ruling Development and Justice Party (AKP), attrac...

Russian Energy Projects in the Black Sea Reach End of an Era

Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s, March 16-17 Russia visit capped a four-week period of spectacular changes to Russian energy transit projects, in the Black Sea and beyond. During these critical weeks, Russia abandoned the Trans-Balkan  (Burgas-Alexandropoulos) oil pipeline project, which it had planned for more than a decade to form a transcontinental oil corridor, stretching from Kazakhstan to the Aegean Sea. The Kremlin also abandoned (in all but name) the South Stream gas ...

Post-Nabucco Era in Caspian Pipeline Business and Politics

For more than a decade, Nabucco was the only pipeline project (and lately, the frontrunner project) for transporting Caspian gas to EU territory. Nabucco relied exclusively on Azerbaijani gas for the pipeline’s first stage (the hopes to add gas volumes from northern Iraq proved unrealistic in any usable time-frame). The European Commission worked hard to align the financing and gas supply guarantees for Nabucco, a strategic project on three counts: its design capacity (31 billion cubic meters [b...

Atambayev Invites Turkey to Decide on US Transit Center’s Future

Although the newly-elected Kyrgyz President, Almazbek Atambayev, received significant Kremlin support in the run up to last year’s elections, Turkey was his first formal destination as the head of state. During a meeting with the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Atambayev invited Turkey, along with Russia and “other states,” to participate in restructuring the US Transit Center at Manas after US and NATO troops leave in 2014. By raising the issue of the US base, Atambayev has incorpor...

The Uludere Air Raid and Systemic Gaps in Turkey’s Intelligence Infrastructure

When smugglers were mistaken for militants in southeastern Turkey on December 28, 2011, a Turkish air raid killed 35 civilians who were carrying fuel across the Turkish-Iraqi border near the village of Ortasu, in the Uludere district. In the following days, media reports hinted that the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT – Turkey’s national intelligence organization) might have provided the military with misleading information in relation to the nature of expected movements across the border, resul...

Killings In Istanbul Just the Latest In Series of Murders of Chechens Abroad

The first reports of the killing of three Chechens after Friday prayers in Istanbul on September 16, indicated the incident may have been linked to the Caucasus Emirate (www.interfax.ru, September 16, 2011). Russian media tried to present the murders as being related to fighting with the Chechen diaspora in Turkey (http://top.rbc.ru, September 16). However, those who follow Chechen developments know that after the Caucasus Emirate was proclaimed in September 2007, those Chechens that did not sup...