19 MAY 2022 · Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will drop his objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO once an enormous amount of pressure is put on him, said Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It is possible that the Europeans and the Americans would find some facesaving concessions that may not mean much but will satisfy him,” said Barkey, who is also the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University.

25 FEB 2022 · A certain level of separation between politics and the religious ulema is necessary in the Muslim world, Ahmet Kuru, a political science professor at San Diego State University, told Ahval. "I am optimistic about the future. I see a secularist generation coming," Kuru said in an interview with Nervana Mahmoud for the Ahval podcast series Turkish Trends.

1 FEB 2022 · Sunni Islam is coming under heavy criticism for the first time in Turkey’s modern history because of the government’s use of religion in politics, political scientist Gökhan Bacık said. “There’s a growing intellectual criticism on Sunni Islam because it’s very much pro-government, it’s silent on human rights abuses, it’s silent on labour rights, it’s silent on gender problems,” Bacık said in an interview with Nervana Mahmoud for Ahval podcast series, Turkish Trends. “Sunni scholars, who are blamed for that, are acting just to legitimise Islamist politics, mainly the government,” he said.

18 NOV 2021 · Henri J. Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said his entire life has been upended by the Turkish government’s unfounded accusations that he was involved in a failed military coup in 2016. Barkey, who is also the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, said the Turkish authorities have formally charged and prosecuted him in absentia with no evidence. He spoke in an interview with journalist Nervana Mahmoud for Ahval’s Turkish Trends podcast series.

6 OCT 2021 · Political Islam in Turkey has lost the opportunity to mix with Western ideals and local dynamics, and ended up being restricted to a parochial Islamism, Turkish political scientist Cengiz Aktar said a podcast with Nervana Mahmoud, who hosts Ahval’s “Turkish Trends” series.

4 AUG 2021 · Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has utilised its youth organisations to dominate the public discourse and to intimidate the political opposition through social media in Turkey, Süleyman Özeren, a Turkish scholar from George Mason University and a fellow at the Orion Policy Institute, said. Özeren was interviewed by journalist Nervana Mahmoud in an Ahval podcast.

1 JUL 2021 · Turkey’s proxies in Libya are doing their best to sabotage the upcoming Libyan elections and keep the foreign forces in the country, Aya Burweilla, a senior adviser at the Research Institute for European and American Studies said. “Against international law, against what Libyans want and against what Libya’s neighbours want, Turkey is trying to keep the illegal foreign occupation in Libya,” Burweilla told Nervana Mahmoud, a political commentator and host of Ahval's Turkish Trends podcast programme on Monday.

20 JUN 2021 · NATO membership is a huge source of prestige for Turkey and that helps the country to sit at the table internationally, Max Hoffman, associate director of National Security and International Policy at the Centre for American Progress (CAP) said. “Erdoğan still values that membership, so hence he played nice in Brussels this week,” Hoffman told Nervana Mahmoud, the host of Ahval’s Turkish Trends podcast on Thursday. “He wants an independent relationship with Russia but the NATO membership also protects him from Russia,” Hoffman said.

14 JUN 2021 · Turkey has been on a charm offensive ahead of the planned NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, and tries to act as if there is no day-light between Ankara and the alliance, Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Ahval’s Nervana Mahmoud in the new episode of Turkish Trends podcast series. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will have a number of bilateral meetings during the NATO summit, including with his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden to discuss crisis-ridden bilateral relations.

10 JUN 2021 · Turkish crime boss Sedat Peker ‘s claims, while working to affirm the suspicions and prejudices of many Turks who already had negative views of the government are unlikely to galvanise the opposition, Ryan Gingeras, associate professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Turkish and Middle East history, said.