The crown jewel of Byzantine churches was made a mosque under the Ottomans, then a museum under Ataturk. Now Erdogan wants it to be a mosque again, and outrage is growing.
Thomas Seibert is an Istanbul-based correspondent. A German national, he worked for AFP, Reuters and the New York Times before moving to Turkey in 1997. He also spent two years in Washington, D.C., as the U.S. correspondent for the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was sacked after securing a face-to-face meeting with President Obama. Erdogan may replace him with his son-in-law.
A debate is raging in Turkey right now over what type of constitution the country should have in the modern world. Up for debate? Making it an Islamic one.
A real sex scandal at a school allied to the Turkish president leads to accusations of sexual and political deviation, with the one hard to tell from the other.
The U.S. is pulling military families out of Turkey and Israel is urging all citizens to leave the country as soon as possible over concerns of a looming terror attack.
President Erdogan vows to bring ‘terror to its knees,’ but this is the third major suicide attack in the Turkish capital in five months.
Riot police moved in as the Turkish government took over Zaman, the country’s biggest newspaper.
A deadly suicide attack on German visitors in the heart of Istanbul may indicate a chilling new strategy by ISIS sleeper cells in Turkey.
Cynical industries have sprung up to exploit the Syrian exodus to Europe, with some selling life vests that sink, others pushing boats that barely float.
Ankara is about to greatly expand its military reach—and up the ante in the region’s dangerous arms race.