Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Nicholas Birch, Author at ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive
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Turkey’s Game-Changer?

Turkey’s Game-Changer?

There have been a lot of positive reactions to the news that Turkey’s secular opposition have joined with nationalists to back a pious former Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference as its candidate for the country’s first-ever direct...
Erdoğan, the Lone Wolf

Erdoğan, the Lone Wolf

The fall from grace of Turkey’s much-fabled foreign policy of “zero problems with neighbors” has been dramatic. Not long ago, the world was praising Prime Minister Erdoğan for expanding links with Arab countries, lifting visa restrictions, and even brokering talks...
The Kemalists’ Veil of Tolerance

The Kemalists’ Veil of Tolerance

There’s a Turkish joke about a man who is taken on a tour of hell. It’s a dark plain filled with huge vats of boiling liquid in which the damned are slowly deep-frying. Devils stand around the vats, and whenever a sinner pokes his head up out of the liquid, they push...
The Best of Enemies

The Best of Enemies

In politics, the pursuit of power always wins out over ideological affinity. That seems to be the moral behind the latest round of tensions between Turkey’s two most powerful Islamic groups—the government itself and the Fethullah Gülen Movement—tensions that...