Journalism -- but 'good' journalism -- in Turkey, comes with a tough ticket that urges a fight against far too many windmills.

Two days ago I was called by one of those colleagues who, in a baffled tone asked me: 'Can you...

'Jazz is a balm that heals the spirit' said Al Jarreau, the divine singer of free-form.

'Jazz is, saying, I dare you' added Wayne Shorter, arguably the most creative composer and saxophone player around, and quoted another great saxophonist, Sonny Rollins who, when once asked 'why do you play jazz',...

Intensely busy, intellectually engaged and emotionally very tense, Turkey is in the midst of two seemingly parallel and synched reform processes: a new constitution and peace talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The objective is obvious. To end a harsh, repressive Republican rule with a new...

Defying pessimism, Turkey's fragile, defining "peace process", involving the PKK's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with the aim of disarmament and political reform, has suddenly changed gears, and stands ready for acceleration.

In the matter of a couple of...

These interesting times, it seems obvious, exert enormous pressure for most of the countries in the east Mediterranean and the Middle East to make historic, almost existential, choices.

With Egypt increasingly rudderless, and helpless about its economy; Israel finally apologizing to set the record straight with Turkey for a...

With the exception of a few semi-democracies in Balkans and Eastern Europe, nowhere in the world is the self-destructive role of media proprietors is more visible, more irrational, more aggressive than in Turkey.

Greedy owners of the big media groups - some ideologically close, some distant to the ruling Justice...

On Thursday, as the spring festival Nevruz was celebrated in Diyarbakır, its historic significance was far beyond the typical joy of jumping over fires.

For the millions of Kurds of Turkey it promises to go down in history as a powerful momentum, a memorable threshold towards the end of a...

As the eurozone crisis shows signs of further deepening with the new uncertainties in the wake of Italian 'non-elections', Germany is increasingly under strain to keep the European Union intact.

Berlin has to deal not only with the brewing anti-austerity and anti-unionism in the Mediterranean strip of the EU...

Turkey's popular, charismatic and impulsive prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, never ceases to surprise. His recent bombshell was about Turky's flirtation with the "Shanghai Five," The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

In a recent TV interview Erdoğan was asked a simple, almost a "too shy" question about where the government is...

Discussing the state of democratic transition in Egypt is equal to talking about the tough challenges its media faces. Many of us, on both sides of the Atlantic, at all the shores, and corners of the Mediterranean, hold our breath before the utterly crucial and fragile process of a new...

After a painful, intensely debated judicial process which took 21 months, Turkey's most spectacular and critical coup trial, branded by its code name "Sledgehammer," ended with not much surprise when 326 people, almost all of them officers, were sentenced to long imprisonment by a court in Istanbul.

All...

Apology, in my opinion, is secondary. First and foremost, the emphasis should be on this society's courage to face the sins of the past. We were deprived of it until today. This is a frightened society. I am not ashamed to say this: We were fed this fear, we were...

'If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change."

As I attended a small, but in essence very important, meeting in the Sicilian capital Palermo I had followed the urge of rereading the masterpiece by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 'The Leopard,' if only to...

The drama unfolding is of similar magnitude, reminiscent of a Middle East in the 1960s or 70s. This time, waves of the Arab Unrest beats the shores of the non-Arab neighborhood: with Egypt undergoing immense change, Lebanon on shaky ground and, certainly, Syria getting closer day by day to a...

This is the story that will never go away.

What happened late at night on Dec. 28, 2011, in the hamlet of Ortasu (Roboski in Kurdish), near the township of Uludere, Hakkari province, at the Turkish-Iraqi border, is an open wound for Turkey.

A recent article by the...

"There is no right or left. They are the same faces of the same system. We are the party who will reconcile the French; we are the great party of national unity. They are for the world and for Europe, we are for the nation and patriotic ... we have...

Well, nobody had truly believed that the Annan Plan would work, had it not?

It was pretty clear from the very beginning that it would be welcomed by Assad and his egime of thugs as yet another instrument for mocking the international community. As Rami Khouri lucidly

The French Senate's passing of the bill which criminalizes the denial of the mass deportations and massacres of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 is simply an act of folly.

Let us first ignore the disproportionate and questionable (in principle) reaction of Ankara, which seems to echo...

As Turkey's accession negotiations with the EU enters their seventh year, alarm bells become louder in the domain of freedom of expression and justice being served for those who are put on trial. Concerns are raised also because of the increasing gap between Ankara and Brussels on the reform process,...

Turkey must also work to support a Cyprus settlement and open its ports to the Republic of Cyprus as it has committed to do. A Cyprus settlement would have benefits extending well beyond the island, from aviation safety to more efficient EU/NATO co-operation. Negotiations on a comprehensive settlement have now...