Insights into Turkish Domestic and International Politics during November 16-30th 2013
By John VanPool, EGF Turkey and Black Sea Regional Analyst

Key Points:

• The AKP-Gulen Movement split hits the front pages and airwaves in Turkey.
• Once friendly outlets controlled by the Gulen Movement turn on Prime Minister Erdogan after a 2004 action plan is released describing AKP complicity with the military to undermine Gulen-owned companies.
• The Constitutional Commission fails on its mission having only agreed to half of the required articles.
• Contentious issues regarding citizenship, the Kurdish issue and a new presidential role remain unresolved.
• Turkey and the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq look set to sign a pipeline deal despite continued opposition from Baghdad.

• December 10, 2013

China will soon rate the performance of local governments partly by how much debt they incur, as Beijing tries to wean the country off heavy government investment, state media said.

• December 9, 2013

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, facing mass street protests over his policy U-turn away from the European Union towards Russia, backed on Monday a call for talks involving the opposition to work out a compromise, his website said.

• December 9, 2013

Call it the Brussels Consensus. A system of beliefs rooted in European Union treaties helps explain the growing gulf between policy elites and ordinary citizens that may cause a political earthquake in European Parliament elections next May.

• December 9, 2013

South Africans united in mourning for Nelson Mandela on Friday, but while some celebrated his remarkable life with dance and song, others fretted that the anti-apartheid hero's death would leave the nation vulnerable again to racial and social tensions.

• December 7, 2013

China's parliament has declared that Japan has no right to criticize the establishment of a Chinese air defense zone which it said was in accordance with international law, state media reported on Saturday.

• December 7, 2013

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich met Russia's Vladimir Putin on Friday to lay the grounds for a new "strategic partnership" to shore up Ukraine's creaking economy in defiance of protesters back home enraged by his U-turn away from Europe.

• December 7, 2013

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has invited euro zone officials to a meeting in Berlin on Friday in a bid to come closer to a solution on a planned European resolution mechanism to deal with troubled banks, a German newspaper said on Friday.

• December 6, 2013