ISTANBUL—US and Israeli attacks on Iran continue in full force. With the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the war has spread across the region.

So far, at least 12 countries have been bombed, and one Iranian missile approaching Turkish airspace was intercepted over Hatay shortly before the publication of this article.

Still, the situation in Turkey remains relatively calm. Unlike in the Gulf, the Iranian regime has so far spared the NATO air base in Incirlik and the early-warning radar system in Kürecik.

Iranian dissidents living in Turkey have mixed feelings about the war. Many were overjoyed that Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic with an iron fist since 1989, was killed. But they are also worried for their family and friends living under bombardment. Views differ widely on what should come next, even if the regime is changed.

Muted celebrations

There were no mass celebrations in Turkey following Khamenei’s death. Turkish authorities have banned all Iranian opposition gatherings since the protests in January.

On Sunday evening, in a street off Taksim Square, a small group of young Iranians gathered in a cafe. The loud giggles from inside gave away how they felt. They sat around a table drinking tea and sharing sweets, their eyes glued to their phones.

“I cried when I heard that Khamenei was killed – cried with joy,” said Reza, a student in his 30s. “We have been waiting for this since my childhood. We waited for the US and Israel to attack. No one likes war, but there was nothing else to be done. We tried to achieve change with protests, but they shot the protesters.”

As a gay man, Reza could not have lived freely in Tehran. He moved to Turkey and is now optimistic. “For the transition, we need someone like Reza Pahlavi to lead us to democracy,” he added, referring to the exiled son of Iran’s last Shah.

Only one bar in Taksim frequented by Iranians appeared to be open that night. Inside, an elderly DJ played classic Iranian pop and Michael Jackson under old-fashioned disco lights. The walls were decorated with Zoroastrian symbols. The few people inside were busier checking the news than celebrating.

“People have stopped coming to have fun since the January crackdown. We’re all very worried,” said a man working there.

A new refugee wave?

In 2025, almost 100,000 Iranians were registered as living in Turkey. This does not include those whose residence permits expired but stayed in the country. Iranians do not require tourist visas to enter, and Iranian visits to Turkey reached a record 3.2 million in 2024.

As the US mobilized its forces, the Turkish government strongly lobbied against a war through all possible channels. The view in Ankara is that regime change could destabilize Iran, leading to a new immigration wave and allowing groups like the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) — an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — to gain a foothold.

In January, local and international reports indicated the Turkish government was preparing plans for a buffer zone inside Iranian territory. The goal would be to contain mass migration within Iran’s borders. Such a move would mark a stark shift from the open-door policy Ankara held during the Syrian civil war.

In late February, Forbes reported that Turkey was preparing to send troops across the border. The Presidency’s Directorate of Communications called these claims false, stating that Turkey “upholds respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of neighboring countries.”

“There is a possibility that a new wave of migration might be triggered, and this could pose a serious challenge for Turkey,” said Arif Keskin, an Iranian Azerbaijani sociologist and political scientist working in Turkey.

“There are a significant number of Afghans and other foreigners in Iran,” Keskin told Turkey recap. “Iran once said there are 3.5 million – perhaps more. Now it will become difficult for them to live there. It’s not just that, Iranians are also currently leaving Tehran because of the war.”

Keskin noted that Turkey would not and should not allow a large number of refugees into the country. But he conceded that turning away ethnic Turks from Iran would be difficult for Ankara. There are 10 to 25 million Azerbaijanis living in Iran, roughly a quarter of the population.

The 560 km-long border with Iran is now mostly sealed by concrete walls, deep trenches and “smart” towers equipped with thermal cameras.

At the Kapıköy border crossing in Van, the situation remains calm. Traffic has returned to normal levels—a few hundred people a day. Those leaving tend to have families or citizenship elsewhere. There have yet to be signs of a major influx.

The grip on dissidents

Yet, Turkey is no safe haven for Iranians. Recent investigations suggest Tehran has at least coordinated with Ankara to detain dissidents in Turkey and transfer them back to Iran, where they face criminal proceedings. More routine deportation threats also mark the lives of those abroad.

Kaveh Taheri is an Iranian human rights activist who has lived in Turkey for 13 years. In late January, he was traveling to the French consulate in Istanbul for a humanitarian visa meeting. He was apprehended by Turkish authorities and moved to a deportation center, where he remains.

“He is kept in the same ward as people who were accused of terrorism, of ISIS [membership],” his sister, Laleh Taheri, told Turkey recap. “If he is deported, I can definitely say he would be executed.”

Laleh believes the arrest was targeted: “It was because of the political relationship that the Turkish government has with the Islamic Republic—which I hope we can call the former regime in a few days. They have put pressure on refugees, especially on Iranian activists.”

“It’s a difficult situation for all Iranians, considering the war,” she continued. “We’re all worried for our families in Iran. At the same time, so many Iranians are happy with the death of the Ayatollah. Complicated emotions … In addition to my family, we are struggling with the situation of my brother. We’re very worried for his safety in the camp.”

About a week after Taheri’s arrest, his friend Saeid H., a writer and activist, was also picked up by police in Istanbul. He was without a valid residence permit and the officers identified him through CCTV photos, indicating the arrest was also likely targeted.

Saeid H. spent some weeks at another deportation center outside Istanbul, notorious for its poor conditions. He said the food was inedible, and those kept there were often mistreated. Saeid H. also noticed EU flag logos everywhere stating that the facility was partially funded by the EU.

“After the protests, if I had been deported, I wouldn’t even get a proper execution,” Saeid H. told Turkey recap by phone. “They would have just shot me on the spot.”

To avoid deportation to Iran, Saeid H. agreed to be sent to a third country, Azerbaijan. He is not as optimistic as other dissidents. He doubts regime change could be enacted only through bombardment and targeted assassinations.

“Let’s say only 10 percent of the population supports the regime, even though it is more. That is 9 million people. They are all armed. If protests start again, they will go and shoot everyone. Now, this is war, they won’t even need courts anymore,” he said.

Saeid H. is a leftist, not a monarchist. He feels he would not have a place in Iran even if Reza Pahlavi were installed by the US and Israel.

“Pahlavi would be a dictator [too],” he said. “They want to get rid of a supreme leader and bring back a king. It is the same crap. With the Islamic Republic, I can go to Europe and feel safe. Under Reza Pahlavi, I will have to go to Mars to feel safe.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ISTANBUL—In the mid-2010s, when Turkey’s economy was still running strong, Deniz Akkar was a newly appointed public school teacher working in central Istanbul.

She eagerly awaited the day she would be eligible for a green passport—a perk for Turkish public servants that allows visa-free travel to Europe, bypassing often lengthy and costly visa procedures.

By the time she finally got the document a decade later, however, her hopes for occasional getaways had been nixed by Turkey’s cost of living crisis.

Despite climbing the career ladder to a senior position at the Istanbul municipality and taking on a second job as a book editor, Akkar’s salaries failed to keep up with the country’s high inflation figures.

This not only left the pages of her passport blank but has also started limiting her ability to go out at all.

“Life feels like walking on a tightrope nowadays,” the 44-year-old Akkar told Turkey recap, requesting the use of a pseudonym due to her position as a public servant.

She added that these financial constraints have gradually carved away much of her social life and have increasingly left her fearing that she would not be able to afford treatment if she were to fall seriously ill.

“If I were to catch a disease, I don’t have the budget or savings aside to get the required care,” Akkar said.

Akkar is among the many urban middle-income earners who hold university degrees and stable jobs in Turkey, but whose purchasing power has been eroded to precarious levels due to soaring living expenses and salaries that have failed to keep pace.

The trend shows little sign of slowing, despite the recent cooling of Turkey’s official inflation rate from the hyper-inflationary peaks of previous years.

Melting minimum wages

In January 2026, the long-awaited annual minimum wage hike was announced at 27 percent, bringing the monthly wage to 28,075 lira.

This marked the first time the minimum income came in below the hunger line, set at around 30,000 lira—the lowest salary required to meet basic nutritional needs for a family of four, according to calculations by the Turkish trade union TÜRK-IŞ.

“This figure is unacceptable to minimum wage earners, the public, and ourselves,” TÜRK-IŞ Pres. Ergün Atalay said following the announcement. “This amount doesn’t cover food, rent, education or transportation.”

Most basic expenses rose by significantly higher rates, from around 30 to nearly 50 percent over the same period, according to recently published official figures. Some experts suspect these numbers to be even higher.

Beyond the roughly 9 million people earning the minimum wage, it also serves as a benchmark for other salaries, with many sectors indexing wages to it or raising pay by even less.

Civil servants, although receiving adjustments twice a year, saw their most recent raises of around 18.6 percent in January 2026.

As a result, the salaries of many teachers, nurses, and police officers are now roughly 20,000 lira below the poverty line, the minimum household income required to live with human dignity, which TÜRK-IŞ places at just above 100,000 lira.

“Despite inflation seemingly going down, prices are still very high, and wages are not keeping up. So, the crisis deepens,” Can Selçuki, an economist and director of Research Istanbul, told Turkey recap.

He added that as inflation persists throughout the year, the gap between income and costs will only widen, leaving Turkish households with an increasingly smaller share of their budgets allocated to food.

“For almost three to four years now, Turkish households have been continuously losing purchasing power,” Selçuki said. “Rather than decreasing the number of times they eat out, people are now decreasing the amount that they actually eat.”

Stabilization at a cost

One of the main reasons for lagging wage increases has been a shift in economic policy following the 2023 election victories by incumbent Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

After years of unorthodox policies centered on low interest rates that fueled runaway inflation, the current reforms under Finance Min. Mehmet Şimşek applied tight monetary policy and fiscal discipline.

These measures are apparently paying off as inflation fell last month to its lowest level since 2021, with rent inflation also dropping to its lowest level in 34 months. The Turkish Central Bank’s total reserves have also doubled since the implementation of Şimşek’s program.

However, with the next elections scheduled for 2028, resolving the cost of living crisis could mean a return to expansionary policies and increased public spending.

“[This is,] from an electoral perspective, obviously the way to solve this,” Selçuki said.

Recent opinion polls indicate many voters, including those aligned with the AKP, view the country’s economic management negatively, with large majorities across the political spectrum stating they had hoped for higher minimum wage increases.

Handing out cash during election times, however, would not be sustainable in the long term, according to Selçuki.

“Turkey needs to do structural reforms, which include fixing its food supply chains, fixing its agriculture, and fixing its tax code in order to ensure efficient allocation of its resources,” Selçuki said. “Basically, Turkey needs more planning.”

Living on plastic

The current burden of declining purchasing power has fallen even more heavily on Turkey’s younger generations. A growing group of young people appears to have become disengaged from any economic participation, as an estimated one in four are neither in education, employment nor training.

Those who study have seen the value of their scholarships erode in recent years, forcing many to pick up additional work to get by. Graduates entering the workforce say their purchasing power has improved little, if at all, compared with their student years.

“I used to get by very comfortably with my scholarships. I could eat out three meals a day,” Meryem Akkoç told Turkey recap, a 29-year-old who recently started her career as a lawyer in Istanbul and prefers to use a pseudonym. “But now, I am a professional. I graduated from a good university and yet, while working, I experience much more [financial] trouble.”

Amid such budget woes, many have resorted to credit cards to cover basic expenses. Turkey has become one of Europe’s top markets for credit card use, holding an estimated 142 million cards, or about 1.6 per person.

According to data from the Banks Association of Turkey, every day approximately 12,000 people in Turkey take out loans for the first time, and an average of 4,000 people fall into debt.

“We embrace credit cards to meet needs. Everyone’s debt grows like an avalanche,” Akkoç said.

However, especially over the past two years, a growing number of people are struggling to repay those debts. In 2025 alone, credit card debt more than doubled, and legal cases over unpaid personal debts have risen to over 2 million, nearly twice the number recorded in 2023.

These figures have become a thorn in the side of Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, which recently introduced new regulations to tighten credit card limits and ease repayment pressures.

For Akkoç, who still lives with her mother, her financial struggles also mean that getting her own apartment is out of reach.

“Renting a place equals a salary,” Akkoç said, underlining how rents have reached parity with average monthly salaries.

She contrasts her situation with that of her father, who was able to buy property while holding a blue-collar job.

“Nowadays, it is impossible for someone to buy something by working and putting money aside,” she said.

Methodology and data sourcing

• Credit card figures were drawn from weekly sector data published by Turkey’s banking regulator.

• Inflation estimates rely on the official consumer price index provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜIK) and independent alternative inflation calculations compiled by researchers at ENAG, following growing skepticism about Turkey’s official tally.

• Food inflation comparisons are based on data provided by the OECD.

• Cost-of-living estimates are derived from TÜRK-IŞ calculations of hunger and poverty thresholds for a four-person household, which include basic food costs as well as expenses such as housing, utilities, transport, education and health.

• Average housing prices have been compiled by using data provided by real estate site Endeksa.

• Wage comparisons are based on publicly reported salary ranges for selected public-sector professions from multiple sources: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026.

Note: Wage statistics do not include biannual hikes. Instead, they focus on year-by-year increases. During Turkey’s hyperinflation years, biannual hikes were more common. However, the trends has shifted back to annual hikes in recent years.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

HATAY—Three years after twin earthquakes struck southern Turkey, many homes and urban centers have been rebuilt, but a return to normalcy continues to evade locals who struggle with limited job prospects.

While official statistics indicate the number of insured workers has returned to pre-quake levels in the impacted areas, they mask a shift in job quality. The region has seen a rise in low-productivity, often informal service jobs and temporary construction work, while the return of high-value professions has lagged behind in the recovery process.

The resulting challenges compound survivors’ sense of loss and grief from the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes on Feb. 6, 2023, which killed more than 53,000 people and destroyed urban areas.

“There’s nothing left of my life before the earthquake,” said Ayla, a 34-year-old Hatay resident who requested the use of an alias.

Ayla has four university degrees and works part-time at a printing house where she folds cardboard for about 20 dollars per day without insurance.

“It’s very difficult to find a job,” she said. “A column broke my mother’s back during the earthquake, and I have to look after her, as well.”

She lost her sister and father in the disaster, and said her mother currently receives 2,000 liras (about 45 dollars) per month as her allowance due to her husband’s death.

Combined with what Ayla makes at the printing house, it’s nearly impossible for them to get by under Turkey’s crushing inflation, which stands at over 30 percent officially and above 53 percent, according to independent researchers.

Recovery by the numbers

While the physical skyline of Hatay is defined by cranes, the economic landscape remains depressed. Nationwide, unemployment stood at 2.7 million in December 2025, according to official statistics.

In the earthquake region, which covers 11 provinces in southern and southeastern Turkey, labor force participation rates across the region are lower than the national average, while the unemployment rate is higher.

According to a new report from the Turkish Presidential Strategy and Budget Directorate, the 2024 labor force participation rate in the quake zone was 49.2 percent (vs. 54.2 percent nationally), and the employment rate is 44.2 percent (vs. 49.5 percent nationally).

Likewise, Hatay’s unemployment rate of 12.0 percent exceeded the national average of 8.7 percent in 2024. In this volatile environment, Ayla is hoping to get a job at the municipality, but said that “it’s a must” to know someone inside to secure a position.

“I’m broken to pieces,” she said. “The losses in my family, in my city … I’m giving a fight every day. The jobs out there are mostly based in construction.”

Speaking in December 2025, Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan said the government has activated numerous programs and unemployment benefits “to ensure our citizens’ livelihoods, prevent the closure of workplaces and keep our people linked to production” in the earthquake zone.

He also added the number of employed individuals had risen “above pre-earthquake levels” in the region. The Ministry of Labor and Social Security did not reply to a request for further details in time for the publication of this report.

Youth employment

Süleyman Rende, a 28-year-old graduate student who is fluent in four languages, has also faced difficult job prospects in post-quake Hatay.

“Since the earthquake, I’ve worked in construction, used a forklift, worked as cleaning personnel,” he told Turkey recap. “But having the education and the certificates that I have, I felt out of place in those jobs.”

Rende lives with his parents and said it’s unsettling to receive economic support from his father, who’s also looking after his two younger siblings.

Many of the businesses shut down completely or shrunk after the earthquakes, he explained, adding the ones that remain tend to employ their relatives.

With bitterness, he’s considering leaving his hometown for Istanbul. He said he knows the cost of living will be even worse there, but the city may also provide more job options.

Mehmet Emin Doğruel, the Hatay representative of the Confederation of Progressive Labor Unions of Turkey (DISK), said that Rende’s experience is not an outlier.

“There are many people who are well educated and are working in construction right now in Hatay,” he said, underlining that the educated especially have a hard time “because they are not used to it.”

Accessibility issues

Often the site of poor working conditions and late payments, construction projects have become hot cash centers for Hatay’s unemployed. Still, the sector is not available as an option for everyone, including women and the elderly or disabled.

Zehra, a 28-year-old beauty expert who gave a pseudonym, said she has not been employed since Feb. 6.

She was trapped under the rubble with her family when her home collapsed in the earthquakes and one of her legs was amputated after she was rescued.

“The jobs I find, such as cashier, are only employing people who are standing during their shifts,” she said. “I was just about to get a position, but they wanted someone who could stand.”

At the moment, she is trying to get by on her husband’s salary from a restaurant. But, like many locals who spoke to Turkey recap say, it’s not enough. Zehra lives in a shipping container and said she often feels suffocated by her lack of options. She’s also not sure her conditions will improve if she does find employment.

“Without a private car, I can’t travel,” she said. “There are infrequent buses around the city, but no bus after six, seven pm. And even if you’re not an amputee, there’s no space to walk for a pedestrian.”

In late 2024, the Hatay Metropolitan Municipality launched a project called HAKIM, which stands for Hatay Center for Career and Employment, in collaboration with Hatay Governor’s Office and other official units.

The center is meant to bring employers and job seekers together, and provide courses to equip job seekers with relevant training and education. The Hatay Metropolitan Municipality, which is run by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), did not reply to requests for comment before the publication of this report.

Closing up shop

It’s a dusty city with survivors hustling through the mud, and children hitchhiking to school. A melting pot for numerous cultures including Turks, Christians and Arabs, Hatay’s old façade with lively narrow streets and vibrant marketplaces is long gone, replaced by rubble and construction.

Inside his tiny shop in a shipping container, Ahmet Azazlıoğlu said he’s lost his ‘joie de vivre’. Like many locals, he lists off the difficulties of inhabiting a city that’s basically a giant construction site. He then added he’d be happy if he received more than one customer in a day.

“I decided to close the shop,” he said with a broken smile.

Azazlıoğlu has been selling kitchen utilities and glasses, but it hasn’t worked out for him. The shop is part of an open-air shopping center organized by the Istanbul Governor’s Office and AFAD, Turkey’s disaster and emergency response agency.

Yet, Azazlıoğlu said it’s difficult for customers to find the correct road to his shopping area amid the surrounding reconstruction projects. A piece of cardboard hangs outside his shop with the words “Liquidation clearance” written in marker.

“Ever since the earthquakes, daily life has become unbearable,” said Azazlıoğlu, who has three daughters and a wife.

“My shop used to be 160 square meters, located very centrally. It was the apple of my eye,” he said. “I used to have two workers, and paid every bill on time.”

“Now, I don’t even know what to pay with what. I have more than 300,000 liras in debt,” he said, adding he did not know how he would repay it.

“Here, we don’t know anything beyond today,” he said.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

DIYARBAKIR—The signs of conflict are visible in Diyarbakır, the regional capital of the Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey. The city’s distinctive black walls, built from volcanic basalt, bear the marks of bullets and shrapnel. In the skies, fighter jets and military helicopters still roar overhead several times a day.

Against this backdrop, the government introduced a peace bid in October 2024. Initiated by Devlet Bahçeli, Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s key ally, the so-called “Terror-free Turkey” process, aims to finally end a 40-year insurgency.

But the peace negotiations between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are faltering. More disagreements are surfacing that look increasingly insurmountable.

First and foremost is the fate of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a PKK-linked coalition that is currently fighting forces loyal to Pres. Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is backed by Ankara. Other issues include amnesty for PKK guerrillas, the release of Kurdish prisoners and the enshrinement of Kurdish cultural and political rights in the constitution.

Yet, even if politicians in Ankara and PKK guerrilla leaders manage to bury the hatchet for good, are the people ready to move on?

The PKK conflict has been the bloodiest and most polarizing in modern Turkish history. The violence has led millions to view the Kurdish struggle for rights as essentially terrorism and separatism. On the other side, millions view the Turkish state as an oppressor.

As the government in Ankara tries to force an end to the fighting, the people on the frontlines remain hesitant. The deep wounds of the last decade have left citizens on both sides unconvinced by the new initiative. Worse, they often have completely contradictory ideas of what has happened and the way forward—regardless of the outcome of ongoing clashes in Syria.

Scars of the fighting

Diyarbakır and the wider region offer a grim reminder of the cost of failed peace negotiations. A previous peace process was launched under Erdoğan in 2013. When negotiations broke down in 2015, heavy fighting erupted—this time not in the mountains, but in urban centers. By the time the Turkish army emerged victorious, the death toll was around 2,000.

“In 2015, there were very heavy clashes in Sur [Diyarbakır], Cizre and Nusaybin,” Ercan Yılmaz, head of the Human Rights Association’s (IHD) Diyarbakır bureau, told Turkey recap. “This resulted in a serious division between the Turkish and the Kurdish communities.”

He said existing tensions were amplified by the conflict’s high death count, which included civilians, PKK members, soldiers and police officers.

“From the perspective of the Turks, the loss of soldiers and police officers increased hatred towards the region,” Yılmaz continued. “On the Kurdish side, serious anger towards the state began to form over the civilians who lost their lives there.”

He went on, stating the dead ranged from 3-year-olds to elderly people aged 73 or 74. Bodies were at times left in the streets amid live clashes.

“Law enforcement officers tied the bodies of some PKK members to cars and paraded them through the streets,” Yılmaz said. “The trauma of all this is still very fresh. This is also true for the Turks. They lost loved ones in the clashes here.”

Parts of Sur, the old town in Diyarbakır, were heavily damaged in the fighting. What was left was bulldozed and replaced by faux historical buildings. Most locals talk of this neighborhood bitterly, often comparing its aesthetics to a prison.

‘An insult to the security forces’

The point of view from the Turkish state is very different. Orkun Özeller is a retired colonel who served 27 years in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). He spent much of his service in counterterrorism operations against the PKK and was personally involved in the fighting that broke out in Diyarbakır in 2015.

“The urban warfare experienced during that period was unprecedented in the world,” Özeller said. “Neither the army nor the police forces had any experience with it. They found themselves in a new model of conflict.”

He continued, “However, if during the clashes security forces were to mistakenly kill a civilian on the street, the public could react and potentially start an uprising against the state. The Turkish military and police achieved the impossible: they succeeded by showing the utmost care and attention to prevent civilian casualties.”

Özeller is vehemently against the new peace process. He was even arrested for criticizing Bahçeli’s initiative in kickstarting the negotiations. Özeller spent 57 days in prison before his release in November last year.

“This discourse [of a ‘Terror-free Turkey’] put forward by politicians is actually like an insult to the security forces who have been fighting for 40 years,” Özeller said. “It is particularly unjust to the Turkish Armed Forces, who have been struggling with great sacrifice and devotion for 40 years, paying a heavy price to end terror in Turkey.”

“Which honorable state sits down at the table with a terrorist organization? As someone who has been involved in counterterrorism since 1993 and has personally witnessed and experienced peace processes on the ground, I do not believe it is correct for the state to engage in talks with a terrorist organization like the PKK.”

Empty villages

The countryside also bears the heavy marks of fighting. The region is littered with villages that were forcibly emptied by security forces on suspicion of aiding the guerrillas.

Over the past two decades, people slowly started to move back, but it is mostly the elderly looking for a quiet place to retire. In such villages, the skeletons of stone buildings outnumber renovated or newly built houses.

“Our village was emptied in the 1990s,” said Seyfi Tuncel from the village of Mağaraköy in Şırnak province. “We are Yazidis, we are a minority even here. No one protected us.”

Tuncel moved to Germany, where he lived for over three decades. He eventually returned to his village and rebuilt his house. But the rest of the village remains mostly abandoned.

“Germany is a good country to live in. There is democracy, there are human rights. But my grandparents’ graves are here. I missed those the most,” Tuncel told Turkey recap. “My kids say: ‘Why would we come back here? There are only stones.’ It is true that there is no work here. There are no factories left.”

“We love our state, and we have trust in it,” Tuncel replied, almost robotically, when asked about the peace process. “We are hopeful. We want peace—and want it very much so.”

Tuncel is not alone. Surveys conducted by IstanPol and Rawest research showed growing public support for the peace process, with 64 percent of participants backing the initiative in May 2025.

Those who paid the heaviest price

The deepest wounds left by the fighting were not on the land and buildings, but on the people. Siyabend Demir had three siblings who joined the PKK and died fighting. While Demir never joined the PKK, his political life is defined by his membership in Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party.

“I still see them in my dreams, that they return,” Demir said. “At some point, we knew they wouldn’t come back as we saw their bodies. But even if all their friends who lived there, who stayed there, were to return, it would be incredible news for us. They would be, so to speak, balm for our wounds.”

Demir’s trauma with the state goes back decades.

“They took my father during a raid on our house in 1993. They made us all lie down on the ground. We were children. Right before our eyes, they pressed a gun against my father’s back and took him away. I prayed so much that my son would not have to go through this. I prayed so much that my son would not see what I saw.”

“But last year, on November 27, they raided my house again, using the PKK’s founding anniversary as an excuse,” Demir told Turkey recap. “They took me away and held me for four days. They laid my son on the ground with me and pressed a gun against his back. I told my son, ‘Don’t be afraid, son. There’s nothing, nothing at all, don’t be afraid. These are all your brothers, your uncles; they were just told to go do this.’”

When asked if he is ready to forgive and reconcile with the state after his experiences, Demir replied positively:

“I never resent the police, not even the officers who arrest me or raid my home … I know they are not the ones to blame. It is the laws, rules and regulations approved in Ankara that put them there. If those laws are amended, they will accept me, too.”

He added, “I wholeheartedly believe in peace, brotherhood and how we can live together. Those who lose the most can win the most.”

Still, he stressed that both sides need to admit their mistakes, and the Kurdish people must be given cultural and political rights. He is skeptical regarding the state’s willingness to compromise, yet is certain that one way or another, the armed struggle will turn into a peaceful, political one.

“The constitution of the Republic of Turkey states that everyone living in Turkey is Turkish,” Yılmaz said back at the IHD office. “This is a lie, a huge lie. I am not Turkish, I am Kurdish. My mother and father are Kurdish. My grandparents are Kurdish.”

“No one in my family belongs to the Turkish identity,” he continued. “When I look at my family tree, I am a member of a family that has lived in Diyarbakır for 800 years. But the constitution defines me as Turkish. This is unacceptable. Serious reform is needed on these issues.”

Some are not ready to forgive

While Yılmaz and Demir argue for political reform and reconciliation, others cannot envision peace with a group they view solely as murderers.

Among them is Pakize Akbaba, for whom time stopped moving 33 years ago, when her son, Ayhan, was struck by seven bullets while fighting the PKK. She still breaks down in tears when talking about her fallen son.

Akbaba leads the Martyrs’ Mothers Association in Istanbul. Their office, where she spends her days, is like a museum dedicated to all the fallen soldiers.

“Now I can no longer see his face,” Akbaba said while quietly weeping. “I will never see my child again. You want to talk, but you cannot hear his voice. You want to hug him, but you cannot reach him. You can only imagine him through the scent you smelled in the past, or the moments you spent with him in your mind.”

“No one can forgive the murderer of so many martyrs. No one has the right to do so!” she continued, her grief shifting into anger. “There cannot be such injustice in any country. A mother cannot forgive her child’s murderer, the murderer of her baby. It is impossible. I will not accept it.”

She hates the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, with a passion, referring to him only as the “baby killer.” For long years, it was the term pro-government media constantly used for Öcalan and anyone slightly sympathetic to his cause.

Then, with the initiative of the ultranationalist Bahçeli, the narrative shifted from “baby killer” to “the founding leader of the PKK, Mr. Öcalan.” This naturally created some confusion in nationalist political circles.

“If those bullets had been fired at your child, would you have accepted it? Were those bullets fired at Bilal [Erdoğan]?” Akbaba continued. She asserted that all the other mothers of fallen soldiers she knows are equally against this process.

“I am 70 years old, I have seen many governments, but I have never seen an official or a party that has done as much harm to Turkey as this one,” she said, referring to Erdoğan and the AKP.

However, on the issue of Kurdish rights, she sees no problems.

“When Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey, he granted equal rights to all citizens living in the Republic of Turkey. We have been experiencing and witnessing this for a hundred years. For example, we have married off our daughters to Kurdish citizens. We cannot condemn this. We cannot view it with hostility.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ANKARA—Three MPs from opposition parties joined the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) last week, shifting the distribution of seats in parliament as Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared 2026 as the “year of reform”.

“We will bring reforms that touch the lives of our people, ranging from protecting our children from digital threats to reviewing our social assistance system,” Erdoğan told AKP members on Jan. 7.

The statement echoes recent headlines about pending age restrictions for social media sites in Turkey. New measures are also expected to help citizens cope with the rising cost of living, though lawmakers in Ankara foresee deeper structural reforms in the year ahead.

Officials told Turkey recap the seat changes signal renewed efforts by the AKP to bring long-discussed constitutional amendments onto the parliamentary agenda in the coming months.

The most anticipated reforms come in two varieties. One involves legislation to advance the ongoing PKK peace talks. The other centers on extending presidential term limits for Erdoğan and succession-related procedures—as recently reported by Turkey recap.

Read more

MANISA—On a foggy mid-December morning in Tekelioğlu, a village in Turkey’s western Manisa province, Ferit Erefe strolls along the edges of Lake Marmara. But as the unseasonably strong sunlight cuts through the mist, it reveals a flat, arid plain instead of water. Decaying fishing boats dot the dried shoreline.

A protected wetland once spanned about 45 square kilometers here. Its abundant carp stocks sustained dozens of households, including those of Erefe and his father, as well as thousands of waterbirds that flocked to the reservoir to breed and pass the winter. Today, cattle graze the green-brown land as an upstream dam has cut off the water flow.

“How are we going to explain this to our children?” Erefe mutters, standing next to one of the boats. “That there was a lake here. That we used to fish here.”

Lake Marmara is one of many freshwater bodies that have vanished across Turkey in recent decades. Since the 1960s, an estimated 186 of the nation’s 240 lakes have been dried up, along with nearly 1.5 million hectares of wetland.

The trend is wiping out livelihoods and ecosystems, and is set to escalate as Turkey approaches a ‘water-poor‘ status, with some regions facing severe desertification by 2030.

The past year marked Turkey’s driest period in over half a century, with above-average temperatures and rainfall shortages disrupting food production and driving up prices, while leaving nearly all major cities with alarmingly low water supplies.

Yet, the steady decline of Turkey’s freshwater resources is driven not merely by climate change and drought, but also by weak safeguards and mismanagement.

State policies have permitted profit-driven ventures, such as dams and mines, to seize natural assets vital to the water cycle, reducing Turkey’s capacity to cope with looming water risks, said Selma Akdoğan of Izmir’s Chamber of Environmental Engineers.

“If necessary measures are not taken, the situation will worsen,” Akdoğan warned.

In this light, Lake Marmara’s evaporation in 2021 was less about climate change, and more tied to the 2009 completion of the Gördes Dam—a project intended to quench the thirst of nearby Izmir and surrounding farmlands that has been hampered by faulty construction, preventing it from retaining sufficient water.

“Climate change is a contributing factor in the water crisis, while inadequate water management is the determining factor,” Dursun Yıldız, head of the Hydropolitics Association, told Turkey recap.

Urban and agricultural demand

Most of the reservoirs serving Izmir and its surroundings, including the Gördes dam, are currently bone-dry. Their ‘dead storage’ is being drained to supply nearly 5 million residents and farmers in the fertile Gediz basin, where locals have struggled with daily water cuts and other conservation measures for months.

Simultaneously, much of the remaining supply currently comes from local groundwater—a renewable but finite resource that requires stringent oversight to prevent over-extraction and other adverse effects like salinization and the formation of sinkholes, as observed in Turkey’s Konya province.

“Our water resources are under pressure both in terms of quantity and quality,” Akdoğan said.

These shortages haunt Turkey’s agricultural sector, the world’s 7th largest, accounting for about 6 percent of GDP and consuming over 75 percent of the country’s water reserves. A recent UN report predicts up to four-fifths of the nation’s farmland could face severe drought within a decade.

“It’s like a desert everywhere,” Mehmet Ali Kerse, a former Tekelioğlu fisherman who turned to cultivating olives, told Turkey recap.

Along with Lake Marmara—which locals said helped produce larger, higher-quality olives by providing irrigation and a cooling summer microclimate—most of the village’s wells have also dried up.

In Gölmarmara, a town between Lake Marmara and the depleted Gördes Dam, grape farmer Muzaffer Günaltay grapples with similar problems, stating water wells need to be drilled deeper and new ones are banned by local authorities.

“My [farmer] neighbor has run out of water,” Günaltay told Turkey recap. “They were going to drill for water. There was no permission. They did it illegally and got fined.”

He said his well suffices for now, but renewed dry spells can easily cut grape harvests by a fifth.

“I believe [drought] represents a grave danger. It is one of agriculture’s biggest problems,” he added.

To combat the growing scarcity, Akdoğan said it is paramount to pursue alternatives like water harvesting and recycling while simultaneously curbing demand from water-intensive industries.

Despite its vast scale, much of Turkey’s agriculture still relies on inefficient irrigation methods such as flood and furrow systems instead of sprinkler and drip irrigation, which can cut water use by half.

Eternal dam nation

Further worsening Turkey’s water crisis is that many of its dams were designed to fail.

Over the past decades, companies with close ties to the government have secured large contracts for hydraulic works that flood villages, dry up nations downstream of Turkey and devastate the environment, all while failing to deliver on their much-anticipated promises.

The Gördes Dam, marred by cracks and leaks, has not maintained significant water levels since its opening. Geological studies had long warned that the ground—made of permeable limestone—was unsuitable for a reservoir. The dam was built regardless, funneling 170 million dollars into the pockets of its contractor.

“No matter what they do, it [the Gördes Dam] will always continue to crack,” Özgür Bal, a local geological engineer, told Turkey recap. “It is a meaningless project, and they’ve killed a natural lake with it.”

In the absence of Lake Marmara, once-thriving fisheries perished, thousands of migratory birds recharted their ancient routes and many tortoises were found suffocating in troughs and wells.

The economic backbone of nearby communities also snapped, forcing many residents to migrate in search of work.

“For younger generations, incomes have become too low,” Erefe said. “[They] can’t even get married anymore.”

Bal went on, stating the dam’s reservoir cannot replace the diverse habitat that Lake Marmara once provided. The stocked fish lack flavor, and instead of swamps where waterbirds can feed and breed, the dam’s environs consist of concrete and rocks, forcing birds to use it only as a temporary transit point.

“After resting for half a day, they get up and head out,” Bal said.

Legal efforts to restore Lake Marmara

Despite such changes, some groups continue to push back on government interventions in the region.

Civil society organizations successfully filed a lawsuit in 2024, halting the lake’s conversion into agricultural land by a state-run agency. In its ruling, the court emphasized the importance of wetlands in the face of global climate change.

“They say that the lake can be saved,” Yıldıray Çıvgın, an environmental lawyer handling several legal cases related to Lake Marmara, told Turkey recap.

A solution proposed by the local governorate would leave the Gördes Dam intact while diverting water to Lake Marmara from elsewhere, a plan met with skepticism, according to Çıvgın.

“A lake cannot be made with carried water,” he said, playing on a Turkish proverb that a mill cannot turn by carrying water.

Yet, new projects continue to threaten water resources. The lawyer is now challenging governor-approved sand mines that have begun impacting the tributaries once vital to the lake’s survival.

“Is it like trying to treat a patient who already passed away?” Çıvgın asks. “I don’t want to believe that. We’re really doing quite a lot. As much as we can.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ADANA—A long, narrow, color-splashed street gets bustling as the sun sets. It’s called Mirza Çelebi Sokak on Google Maps, but since the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian war, locals have come to know it as ‘Little Aleppo’.

Once a neglected area near Adana’s old city center, the neighborhood took on a new identity as a home and source of livelihood for thousands of Syrians who fled the conflict.

Here, calls from Arabic coffee sellers, honks from the maroon and teal metal tuk-tuks and casual conversations collide with the sudden squeal of brakes from electric scooters, some of which carry up to five people, including babies and small children.

The street is lined with chicken roasters, falafel wrappers, gold dealers, spice vendors, phone repair shops, clothing stores, bakeries and beauty parlors managed by Syrians, creating a home away from home, just a 10-minute drive from the modern Adana city center.

Today, one year after the war ended and Pres. Bashar al-Assad fled the country, many refugees remain hesitant to move back to Syria, often citing security and infrastructure concerns.

The question of whether to move back is most difficult for young Syrians who grew up, studied and worked in Turkey—and must now weigh their future prospects on both sides of the border.

Among them is Ahmed Diyab, a 28-year-old from Idlib who runs a shop in Little Aleppo. He said post-war reconstruction will take years and prefers to wait for living conditions to improve before moving. His father, who owns a home in Syria, was less patient.

“Assad fell on a Sunday, and we celebrated here all day. The next day, my father left for Syria. He couldn’t wait any longer,” Diyab said with a smile.

Ahmed Diyab

Diyab’s decision is more complicated, with implications for his two children and wife, whom he met in Turkey. He worked hard to get the security his family enjoys today.

Having fled Syria at age 15, he was the first of his family to leave, and was later joined by his parents, siblings and cousins. When asked why he chose Adana, he said it’s a large, southern city near Syria that he thought would offer the most work opportunities.

And work he did, in textile sweatshops like hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Turkey, until his brother opened the sweets and nuts shop in Little Aleppo. He also went to a school for Syrians in Adana in the early morning, finishing high school in Turkey.

He said he’d like to further his education in Syria, but this depends on Syrian Pres. Ahmed al-Sharaa’s capacity to establish more stability there.

“We’re thinking of returning to Syria when things become more settled, maybe this summer,” Diyab said. “When we return, I want to continue my education to become a kindergarten teacher.”

More than numbers

Many Syrians are making similar calculations based on the pace of reconstruction. Yet, according to a World Bank report from October, the total cost of Syria’s infrastructure damage is estimated to be $216 billion.

Progress on reconstruction, along with efforts to revitalize Syria’s economy through the removal of remaining sanctions on the country, are key considerations for Syrians weighing their options in Adana and beyond.

In total, there were over 2.9 million Syrian refugees in Turkey last December, according to the Interior Minister. The ministry’s latest data from November indicates there are currently over 2.3 million Syrians residing in Turkey—meaning more than half a million have left in one year.

Similar dynamics exist in Adana, which hosts Turkey’s fourth-largest Syrian population after Istanbul, Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa.

According to data shared by Turkey’s Interior Ministry in May, 203,871 Syrians lived in Adana. In early December, the number of Syrians under temporary protection in the city fell to 180,552, according to Adana Gov. Yavuz Selim Köşker.

The change is not yet visible in Little Aleppo. Süleyman Akdeniz, one of the few Turkish shop owners in Little Aleppo, said most Syrians in the area are in some kind of limbo.

“Many of them want to stay but are wishing Turkey would give them citizenship after so many years here. They are worried about the armed gangs and possible re-escalation of conflicts if they return,” Akdeniz said. “Their children were born and grew up here. They built lives here.”

Akdeniz went on, explaining that all his workers are Syrian, and nearly all his friends have become Syrians. He is sad to see them leave, even at relatively small rates.

“The street hasn’t changed much since Assad’s fall,” he said. “It’s still very crowded.”

Remembering his childhood in the Adana neighborhood, Akdeniz recalls that the area was a dangerous place that he avoided entering before Syrians relocated there.

“After the Syrians arrived, they turned it into a vibrant marketplace,” he said.

That shift is echoed in the stories of younger Syrians who now call the street home.

Saleh Debbes

When he was seven years old, Saleh Debbes moved to Adana from Aleppo with his parents. He remains the anchor among his family members who prefer to stay in Turkey.

“My parents would leave today, if they could,” he said. “But I like it here.”

He studied until high school among Turkish students and later started working in various knafeh (künefe) shops across the city. He watches Turkish soap operas regularly, listens to Turkish music and loves Adana kebab.

“Many of my girlfriends, including the one now, are Turkish,” he said. “My mother doesn’t want me to take her as my wife because she’s not wearing a headscarf.”

Explaining that even his dreams are in Turkish now, Debbes said that he doesn’t really know what awaits him in Syria, but feels in place here.

“After Assad fell, other conflicts broke out,” he said, referring to the clashes in the Alawite districts along the western coast in March and Druze-Bedouin conflicts in Sweida in July. “I told my mother: Look, it’s no time to return yet.”

Across Little Aleppo, the choices differ—some feel rooted here, others wait restlessly for a safer Syria, and many remain suspended between the two.

‘Wait-and-see’

Metin Çorabatır, president of Turkey’s Center of Asylum and Migration (IGAM), said many of the Syrians in Turkey are currently following a “wait-and-see” policy for their returns.

“The stability in Syria is not there yet. The Syrian government is having certain conflicts with the PYD from time to time,” he said of the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party that controls parts of Syria’s north. “Israel is active in the south where the Druze are living. In Latakia, there’s still conflict with the Alewites. It’s not harmonious all around. There are still security concerns.”

He noted that decisions to return depend on where people come from and whether they have houses in place to go back to.

Çorabatır also underlined the concerns for daily life. Conveying that access to jobs, education and health facilities is still limited, he predicts that it may take a few more years for many families to make the decision to repatriate.

“Sometimes, part of the family returns to Syria and the ones who stay here work and send money to rebuild their lives back there,” he told Turkey recap.

Meanwhile, Syrians under temporary protection will be mandated to partially pay for health services and medicine starting on Jan. 1, the Official Gazette announced on Nov. 28.

Moreover, the government is also ramping up inspections against businesses that employ workers without insurance as well as mandates for business owners to pay for the workers’ deportation, Çorabatır said. He predicts the combined measures will increase the rate of returns.

Kamer Hezza

The growing pressure adds to the already uneasy calculus shaping Syrian families’ choices today. For example, Kamer Hezza, an 18-year-old from Deir Ezzor, has been living in Adana with her family since she was four.

She is part of a generation that has almost never known their home country. Hezza is also the eldest of five siblings, all who were born in Turkey though none have attended school, she said.

Hezza works in a textile sweatshop and her father works as a welder to contribute to the family income. Yet, consumer products are becoming more expensive, she noted, as high inflation continues to eat away workers’ salaries in Turkey, “but at least there’s work to do.”

“We love everything about Adana,” she said with broken Turkish, and adds that they don’t have plans to leave yet. “We don’t have a house in Syria, and there’s no source of livelihood yet. If we go there, life will be very hard.”

It will be difficult for local business owners, as well, as many have depended on Syrian labor for more than a decade.

For all the political and logistical factors shaping Syrian returns, Çorabatır said Turkey is about to face a labor vacuum, especially in sectors like welding, heavy industrial businesses, textiles and construction.

“Syrians had undertaken jobs that Turks didn’t really want to do. So, there will definitely be a major loss of labor force in those areas,” Çorabatır said.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to produce balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ALIAĞA—The anger is palpable in Aliağa, a heavy industrial hub on Turkey’s Aegean coast. Although the town has long been infamous for its high rate of workplace deaths, the killing of shipbreaker Hasan Aktepe on Nov. 12 struck a particular nerve.

In the late afternoon of that day, while dismantling the base of a large oil rig, Aktepe climbed under a massive metal slab to drill a hole and drain the water from inside. Apparently, he was unaware that a colleague was cutting above him.

An estimated 80 tons of scrap broke loose and crushed Aktepe. He had just turned 45 the day before and was planning to buy a car the weekend after.

“I don’t understand this last death,” said a former shipbreaker in Aliağa. “It is pure stupidity. If someone is cutting on the top, why would anyone be sent down to the bottom?”

“It was because they were made to hurry,” added another worker who was on that very yard when Aktepe was killed. “The workers were told to finish the job that day.”

“This was entirely preventable,” Prof. Alp Ergör, a public health professor at Izmir’s Dokuz Eylül University and former labor inspector, told Turkey recap.

Yet he is not surprised. A dangerous combination of prioritizing speed over safety, a lack of oversight and impunity for negligence has driven many workers in Turkey to their graves. The country has long been ranked among the worst and most hazardous places to work. This year appears to be no exception.

At least 1,736 workers died on the job in the first 10 months of 2025, Turkey’s Health and Safety Labor Watch (ISIG) reported. This November alone saw a string of high-profile workplace fatalities, including seven female workers — three of them underage — killed in a cosmetics factory fire, and a fifteen-year-old carpenter reportedly tortured to death.

By comparison, across the entire European Union, 3,347 fatal occupational accidents were recorded in 2023, according to the latest Eurostat figures.

Despite clear negligence in the case of Hasan Aktepe, no one Turkey recap spoke with expects anyone to be held accountable or any substantial changes to follow. The family will receive some compensation, and no charges will be pressed—a practice considered commonplace.

A few days after Aktepe was laid to rest, work resumed at the yards. Just as it did six weeks earlier, when another shipbreaker, Halil Ibrahim Uz, fell to his death.

Leading causes of death

ISIG estimates that since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, a minimum of 35,000 workers have died. This averages about five deaths per day in Turkey, with at least one child worker and two elderly workers killed every week.

“Since ISIG started in 2011, it has been either the construction or the agricultural sector that causes most deaths,” ISIG member Aslı Odman told Turkey recap. However, industries like shipbreaking, mining and motorcycle delivery services have relatively the highest mortality rates.

Last year, traffic accidents, falling from heights and getting crushed were the leading causes of death among the nearly 1,900 workplace fatalities recorded by the labor watchdog.

These figures are likely an underestimate, Odman noted, as the organization largely relies on news and social media reports, which mainly capture “sudden deaths”.

Fatalities due to occupational diseases often do not make it into the count—although their death toll is an estimated two to seven times that of workplace accidents, according to Odman.

Yet, she believes these numbers are still more comprehensive than the official occupational data from Turkey’s Social Security Institution (SGK), as their data often does not include unregistered workers or ongoing court cases.

Turkey’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security did not reply to Turkey recap’s request for comment.

Lack of inspection and accountability

One of the main reasons behind worker deaths, according to Sevda Karaca, an MP for Turkey’s Labor Party, stems from employers cutting corners by deliberately ignoring safety measures to boost profits.

“Occupational safety and worker health in workplaces are treated as costs, and workers’ lives are sacrificed in cost-benefit calculations,” Karaca told Turkey recap. She added that safety rules are often viewed as measures that slow the pace of work and, therefore, only exist on paper.

Karaca and ISIG insist on using the term “workplace homicides” instead of “occupational deaths” to emphasize that these fatalities are preventable.

Workplace safety specialists have increasingly less independence due to privatization since legal changes in 2013. According to Ergör, they cannot enforce regulations effectively and face immediate pressure when they push for costly or time-consuming safety measures. Workers in shipbreaking yards in Aliağa also confirmed this.

“Occupational safety specialists and workplace doctors are [now] the employer’s employees,” Ergör said.

Moreover, when accidents occur, those higher up often face no punishment or only minor penalties, both Ergör and Karaca said. Most recently, following a deadly explosion in 2024 at a pasta factory in Sakarya, the owners escaped trial while the occupational safety expert and other administrative personnel received hefty prison sentences.

State oversight and inspections, when they occur, are also often described as ineffective. The Sakarya factory was subject to inspections by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security one month prior to the blast.

This is a rare occurrence, as reportedly only four out of every 10,000 businesses are examined by ministry inspectors annually, with fewer than 1,000 labor inspectors overseeing over 2 million businesses.

“[Even during] government inspections, they [the bosses] know exactly which day and hour they are coming,” another shipbreaking yard worker told Turkey recap. “That day, everything is cleaned up. I know because I did it. Those days, serious protective gear is handed out.”

A new deadly trend

In Turkey’s fast-growing gig economy, motorcycle delivery drivers risk death on the roads daily. They mostly deliver takeout food and parcels bought on Amazon-style web stores, and are legally considered self-employed. On average, one delivery driver gets killed each week.

“They tell us ‘you’re a boss, not a worker,’” Mesut Çeki, head of the Delivery Worker Rights Association, told Turkey recap. “But this is a lie! Many people want to work without a boss. They use this sentiment to trick people.”

For example, the delivery drivers working for the widely used Yemeksepeti food delivery app can decide for themselves how much they work and when. The gross income also looks enticing on paper. But most of the advantages end there.

As self-employed, they have no paid leave, health or other kinds of insurance, severance pay, right to join or form a union, or any of the other traditional workers’ rights.

“To make ends meet, a motorcycle courier has to deliver at least 50 to 60 packages a day,” Çeki added. “That leads to working 70 to 80 hours a week. How good can one’s reflexes be after having worked for 12 hours [in one day]? How can they adhere to traffic rules with such a workload?”

Çeki himself started working as a motorcycle delivery driver during the Covid pandemic after he lost his job.

One day, he was told that he needed to “urgently” deliver some sushi to a luxurious part of Istanbul in the middle of a storm. This angered him so much that he started an online platform that eventually evolved into the Delivery Worker Rights Association.

“The deaths of delivery drivers are not because of individual mistakes. Couriers are dying, being killed, as a result of the system,” Çeki asserted.

One of the high-profile delivery driver deaths was that of Samet Özgül. He was working for Trendyol GO in Ankara when, in 2022, he got into an accident. It quickly turned into a brawl, and Samet was fatally stabbed.

“I have been seeking justice for my brother Samet since 2022,” Berna Özgül told Turkey recap. Only one of the three attackers was sentenced. In her pursuit of justice, Özgül also became a council member for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“There is a widespread perception in Turkey right now concerning motorcycle delivery drivers—that they make a great deal of money, are their own bosses and have an easy time of it. In reality, that is not the case.”

Back in Aliağa, the work continues in the shipbreaking yards. Those who are crushed or fall to their death on the job are sometimes not even the unluckiest ones. Because of the hazardous materials they handle, many develop cancer and other fatal illnesses, leading to long and excruciating deaths.

“I have to continue for now,” said the shipbreaking worker whose colleague recently died. “If I find another job for the same wage, I will leave that very day, of course. I know that [here] I will die prematurely.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Stüdyo recap editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ISTANBUL—A retro computer screen on a violet background, an error system alert and a sign reading: “Women will fix this system.”

That’s how Turkey’s We Will Stop Femicides Platform (KCDP) is calling on people to take the streets Tuesday, Nov. 25 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

This year’s demonstrations come as Turkey continues to witness high femicide rates, which rights advocates link to a combination of weak legal protections and a parallel surge in gun ownership across the country.

According to the platform, from January to October 2025, 235 women were killed by men, and another 247 died under suspicious circumstances.

“The numbers have gone up because the resistance of women is more evident now,” KCDP activist Şirin Yalıncakoğlu told Turkey recap. “Women are more likely to ask for a divorce or to separate from their family or their partners. They want freedom and to be in charge of their own lives, but in response, the men kill them.”

Istanbul Convention

The platform argues lawmakers should take more measures to protect women in Turkey. Instead, activists note, officials have promoted conservative narratives on women’s role in the family as Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterates that all women should have at least three children.

In kicking off the new year, Erdoğan declared 2025 to be the “Year of the Family”, and has since extended the slogan to the next decade. The campaign seeks to reverse the nation’s falling birth rate through government incentives for new families or families with many children.

Yet, this pro-family agenda was introduced at the end of 2024, the year with the nation’s highest-ever recorded femicide rate, at 452 deaths according to KCDP data.

Yalıncakoğlu said the spike in violence is partly tied to political rhetoric, and also to Turkey’s 2021 withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty opposing violence against women and domestic violence.

At the time, government officials argued Turkish Law No. 6284 provided sufficient legal grounds to prosecute and prevent instances of violence against women. Yet human rights groups have maintained the law is not creating a deterrence effect, with Yalıncakoğlu stating it is “not applied correctly.”

“It made the situation a lot worse,” Yalıncakoğlu said. “Just to give you an example, when a woman goes to the police to denounce a crime, sometimes they pretend there is nothing they can do about it.”

In such cases, most women turn to the platform or similar organizations to ask for help and protect their rights, she added.

Open prisons, black markets

Additional risks are posed by Turkey’s open prison system. Inmates at these institutions are considered to be low-risk repeat offenders and are eligible for work programs outside the prison grounds.

Yet, instead of using this permission to work, some men convicted for violence against women turn to the black markets to buy firearms.

One stark example of the systemic risks in Turkey came on Nov. 3, when Nermin Tirit was shot and killed by Salih Aybas, who then committed suicide with the same gun. He had previously stabbed her and was arrested in 2023 for attempted murder.

“Femicides happen because it is really easy to find a gun, and in most of the cases we see that the gun was not registered,” Yalıncakoğlu said. “The state must address this issue. You can’t defend yourself if the assaulter has a gun.”

Gun attacks on women are a symptom of a much wider problem in Turkey. There are currently an estimated 40 million firearms in the country, and the number of people obtaining gun permits has more than doubled since 2018. As a result, shootings have increased.

Prof. Yasemin Inceoğlu, of the Umut Foundation, said there were 3,801 armed incidents across Turkey in 2023 with a total 2,370 people killed and 3,829 injured.

“The preliminary data for 2025 already show 2,785 cases between January and early November,” Inceoğlu told Turkey recap. “But we still have two months left before the end of the year.”

Looking at the foundation’s violent incidents maps, Inceoğlu pointed to Istanbul, Samsun, Ankara, Adana, Bursa, Diyarbakır and Çorum as the top provinces for armed incidents, with the Marmara region—including Istanbul—accounting for nearly 29 percent of the incidents.

When it comes to femicides, there are no official records. The Umut Foundation relies on press releases from authorities, news reports and information obtained by victims’ families to create its reports.

Patriarchy and control

“On average, one in every 35 incidents involving firearms targets women,” Inceoğlu said.

She added violence against women is rooted in Turkey’s persistent patriarchal mentality. This can include men’s desire to control women’s behavior, the shame stemming from losing control over another person or even the perception of losing it.

There are also reinforcing pressures from families and, at times, community expectations. Such elements, in different forms and combinations, can contribute to femicides.

“In Turkey, honor is perceived as something related to women’s bodies, to their sexuality and to the notion of controlling them,” Inceoğlu said.

Those seeking control are most often men, who also make up the large majority of new gun license applications. Notably, the official gun market is not the only one expanding.

“There is a stable black market in Turkey, and 90 percent of firearm crimes involve illegal guns,” Inceoğlu said.

Another ominous trend the Umut Foundation has recorded is the increase in Google search queries on how to buy a gun in the country.

Meanwhile, the state has attempted to take some countermeasures. In November 2024, the Turkish parliament approved a law proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to reduce the accessibility of unlicensed firearms and enforce stricter penalties for illegal gun possession.

The previous prison term of six months to three years was raised to one to five years. Severe sanctions are also prescribed for those who import or trade critical firearm components, such as barrels, slides or firing pins, with imprisonment ranging from five to twelve years.

“Gun violence is still rising, and the fact that the government acknowledges the issue publicly is a positive sign, but deeper reforms are needed,” Inceoğlu said. “Tougher penalties are not enough. Enforcement remains weak and, since 2021, it’s easier to apply for a gun [license].”

Turkey’s Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Family and Social Services did not respond to requests for comment for this report.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Turkish language editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

HATAY—Cemile İncili remembers being trapped after the first earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023. She also remembers hearing the voices of her sister, Mevlüde Yıldız İncili (60), and her nephew, Mehmet Şükrü İncili (39), in nearby rooms.

Rescue crews pulled her out of the rubble the next day, half conscious. They took her first to Adana and then to Ankara, where she spent a month and a half recovering.

She had survived the collapse of the Rönesans Rezidans, a luxury apartment in Antakya that turned sideways in the tremor. At least 269 people died in the building, and about 50 additional people were never found — including Cemile’s sister and nephew.

Now 59, Cemile thinks of them often. They both loved to travel and had been to Europe and America. Mevlüde was a teacher, “very idealistic, she loved children and was due to retire in three years,” she said.

Cemile is one of many people in Turkey who lost loved ones to the Feb. 6 earthquakes and don’t know what happened to them. As the disaster’s third anniversary approaches, the families of Turkey’s missing quake victims continue searching for clues on the whereabouts and remain unsettled by the lack of clear answers.

Cemile said she has felt unsupported by state authorities and recounted a face-to-face exchange she had with Hatay Gov. Mustafa Masatlı.

“He told me: ‘Cemile, it was a big earthquake. They went to heaven. It doesn’t matter if there is a grave. Wherever you [pray for them], it goes to their souls.’”

“‘I know,’ I said, ‘But I need a place to go. Is it my right to find out if they were burned, torn apart, killed, buried wrongly, or if someone took them away?’”

The total number of people missing from the Feb. 6 earthquakes varies depending on the source.

Three months after the disaster, then-Interior Min. Süleyman Soylu said 297 people, including 86 children, were missing. In November 2024, the current Interior Min. Ali Yerlikaya updated the missing to 75, including 30 children.

The same month, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy for Hatay, Nermin Yıldırım Kara, said there were 140, including 38 minors.

There are several reasons for the disappearances. Among them are a lack of government assistance and supervision during initial rescue efforts, which led to false identifications. The condition of some bodies also made identification difficult.

“In the first few weeks, burials took place without time for DNA testing,” said Aysun Avcı, a lawyer from Adıyaman who has worked on cases involving missing people.

A report published on March 31, 2023, by the Association of Forensic Experts confirms the identification problems in the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes.

“Despite warnings from our expert colleagues for approximately two weeks, it was reported that prosecutors were handing over bodies to ‘relatives’ based on their statements, without taking any samples,” the report states.

The high number of deaths—more than 50,000—and the lack of space for bodies also made it difficult for forensic experts to put pressure on prosecutors at the time.

Another factor was the state of health care facilities. Some hospitals were further damaged by the second earthquake, leading to the evacuation of patients. In some cases, families were not informed of their relatives’ new location.

“We had a case of a father looking for his daughter. The girl had been transferred to a hospital in Ankara, but no one had notified the father. It was thanks to personal networks that we were able to locate the daughter,” explains the lawyer Aysun Avcı.

She also said that in some cases, bodies may have been unknowingly transferred to rubble dumps by clean up crews.

In other cases, such as that of Mustafa Batuhan Güleç (24), people survived the earthquakes but were lost track of during their transfer to hospital.

Sema Güleç, his mother, explains that neighbors saw her son after the earthquakes. He lived in the Gülerius Apartment building in Iskenderun. Those who rescued him took him out at 10 am and covered him with a blanket. He had no physical injuries.

Rescuers wanted to transport him by ambulance, but since there was no space he was taken in a private car instead. His family never heard from him again.

Batuhan studied architecture and loved sports, his mother said.

“He used to play all kinds of sports. From an early age, he played football, basketball and then taekwondo,” Sema told Turkey recap. “He was very helpful. He never upset us. He grew up on his own. He was a very good boy.”

Batuhan’s family waited eight days for the workers to finish removing all the rubble and searched for him throughout the country.

“We checked all the hospitals in Turkey. We checked the cemeteries. We checked the morgues. I reported his disappearance to the police,” Sema said. “It’s been over two years. I’ve been looking for him, but he’s not here.”

In the earthquake zone cemeteries, there are still unidentified graves marked with a piece of wood standing upright, as a headstone. Some have a number, others a piece of cloth.

There are also some with the words: ‘Ben kimsesiz değilim. DNA bekliyorum’ (I am not without an identity. I am waiting for DNA testing).

The families interviewed for this report have also been waiting for cross-referenced DNA tests to determine the identities of the deceased.

“No one cared about him properly for a year. They didn’t look for him. For example, we wanted the graves to be opened. After that, the DNA tests should be done again. However, no one cared for a year. If anyone cared, maybe he would be found,” Sema said.

Cemile’s experience has been similar.

“There is no result. This upsets us,” Cemile told Turkey recap. “If the DNA test comes out, I will go to the prosecutor. He will tell me: ‘If there is a match, we will let you know’. That’s it. How many times do we have to hear this promise? It’s always the same every time we go. We have no answers.”

Ayten Tuncer’s sister, Nesrin Tuncer (42), disappeared in Antakya. She lived in the same flat as her parents, but unlike them, her body was never found. She was a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance. She did not get married and she loved traveling abroad.

“She had no problems. She was full of life. She was a girl with no hatred. She never made us angry,” Ayten said. “What can I say? She was a good sister.”

Since Feb. 6, 2023, Nesrin’s family have also carried out DNA tests, but without a positive match.

“Technology has developed nowadays. It’s not like it used to be,” Ayten told Turkey recap. “People are going to space. I mean, why is it not possible to find the [lost people] under the ground? Are we that helpless?”

All interviewees said they have lost trust in the state’s capacity as a result of their experiences in searching for lost loved ones. The Interior Ministry did not respond to multiple interview requests for this report.

Such feelings are intensified by official statements, like the one made by the Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş in January 2024, when she declared:

“Not one of our 1,912 children is missing. The identification of the children has been carried out with the utmost care, in collaboration with the Ministries of Health, the Interior, Justice and Family, as well as with all parties involved.”

Refuting the statement, Aysun Avcı said there are families who, in fact, continue to demand answers regarding the disappearance of their children.

“[This] is a public institution that is making statements to avoid a loss of prestige,” Avcı told Turkey recap. “These statements, which mislead public opinion, are already well known. Therefore, it does not seem feasible to claim that the state fulfilled its obligations in managing the earthquake.”

The government’s inability to act has shifted the responsibility of finding missing people onto family members.

As a result, some families are coordinating efforts and have joined forces in platforms such as the Earthquake Victims and Relatives of the Missing Association (DEMAK) and February Six Platform (Altı Şubat Platform).

“We became like a family with other families. We became very sincere. We support each other psychologically. We call each other,” said Sema Güleç, one of the founders of Altı Şubat Platform.

In addition, psychological and financial support is essential in this situation, said Selahttin Kaban, president of the DEMAK association.

“In order to find the missing people as soon as possible, we need to speed up the analysis of the graves, meet with the families, provide psychological support and provide financial aid, if possible,” Kaban told Turkey recap.

He added that the Interior Ministry has launched a large investigation to help find the missing, although detailed information on the initiative has yet to be released.

A year after the earthquakes, most families received a certificate of presumed death, as established in Article 31 of the Turkish Civil Code: “If a person disappears in circumstances that give rise to a presumption of death, they shall be deemed to have died even if their body has not been found.”

But the fight to locate the family members’ whereabouts continues. Ayten Tuncer said death is conclusive. Her sister’s disappearance is not.

“Disappearance is very painful. Because there is uncertainty. Have they fallen into someone’s hands? Have they been used maliciously?” she asked.

“I mean, maybe they are alive. Their mind is not in the right place. Maybe. They may not be able to return. Maybe they have fallen. Maybe they are injured. When is this going to be investigated? How long can I keep doing this on my own?”

UPDATE: In January 2026, Nesrin Tuncer’s remains were identified through DNA testing at the Toygarlı cemetery in Antakya and has been transferred to the family grave in the Asri cemetery, also in Antakya.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Turkish language editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

DIYARBAKIR — The village of Kurşunlu (Pirejman in Kurdish) is settled high up in the mountains to the north of Diyarbakır. Though violent clashes between PKK guerrillas and the Turkish state ceased some years ago, the sound of explosions still occasionally shattered the serenity of the village. These days, however, it’s not jets or rockets but dynamite from the nearby mines.

“If I cannot live in peace in my own village, in my own land, what peace are they talking about?” Mehmet Olgaç told Turkey recap, referring to the ongoing peace talks between Ankara and the PKK. Olgaç is the headman of Kurşunlu, where the locals’ lives were turned upside down by nearby mining activity.

The countryside of Diyarbakır and the wider southeast region of Turkey is rich in natural resources. Lead, phosphate and petroleum are just a few of the lucrative materials beneath the surface. Yet, decades of conflict deterred investment in the area.

That risk calculus is changing. The PKK’s more than 40-year armed insurgency against the Turkish state could be coming to an end with negotiations that began late last year. Progress has been slow, but on Oct. 26 the PKK announced it was withdrawing all remaining forces from Turkey.

Reduced security tensions could spark an investment rush in one of Turkey’s least developed regions, led by both the state and private companies. On the other hand, activists and locals told Turkey recap that they fear for their villages and being displaced again – this time by mining and resource extraction instead of conflict.

Ahmet Inan, head of the Diyarbakır Bar Association’s Environmental Commission, oversees many legal cases, including those filed by Kurşunlu residents against the mining company. He stressed that many local residents make their living from the land and view outside interventions through their experiences with conflict and dispossession.

“One reason people were forced to leave their villages in the 90s was to destroy the Kurdish people’s way of life, which was tied to the land,” Inan told Turkey recap. “Now, with many different projects, the Kurdish regional capital and the government are working together to set the stage for this to happen [again].”

In recent years, Turkey’s Kurdish majority regions have seen thousands of applications to the Environment Ministry for business licenses with potentially severe environmental impact. In Dec. 2024, the government also unveiled an ambitious development plan featuring sweeping irrigation and industrial infrastructure.

Many of these projects sparked public outcry and protests over their potential ecological impact. “This will undermine peace, because ecological values are at the very heart of peace,” Inan said.

Mining the east

In Kurşunlu, mining for lead and zinc began over a decade ago. The company leading the extractions is Ölmez Madencilik. Its owner, İsmet Ölmez, is a Kurdish businessman with strong ties to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

There is a checkpoint at the entrance of the village manned by state security forces with assault rifles and an armored vehicle. They stop our car, check IDs and ask detailed questions regarding the purpose of our visit.

“They are Turkish soldiers but act like the private security of Ölmez Madencilik,” Olgaç said as he drives through the roadblock. A little later, he adds: “You see the white pickup behind us? They are following us.”

The white pickup turns back at the entrance to Kurşunlu. But hours later, when we make our way back, it once again tails us all the way to the nearby town of Dicle. In the front, two men sit in uniforms and dark sunglasses.

According to Olgaç, the mine exploration area has increased over twentyfold over the years. “Two nearby villages will be completely destroyed,” he added.

The Ministry of Environment approved the mine’s expansion in 2022 from 25 hectares to 530 hectares, despite objections from locals. As part of the enlargement, over 200 hectares of trees have been cut down, while mining explorations are accompanied by violent dynamite blasts.

“When they detonate dynamite [in the hills], the whole village gets covered by a thick layer of dust,” said Ahmet Ceylan, another villager, who used to work in mines before retiring. “That dust is filled with lead and zinc. These are heavy metals, it is poisonous. Our fruit trees, our vineyards, all dried up. We hardly harvest anything.”

The locals claim the mines harm not only their crops and way of life, but their physical health, too. They are certain that the heavy metals in the dust are responsible for the sharp spike in cancer, bronchitis and other illnesses in the village.

“Look at Kirvan,” Olgaç noted, pointing to his friend sitting opposite. “He had an operation. They had to cut out 35 percent of his intestines. He almost died.”

“You can’t just tell people ‘I’ll give you a job’ after they’ve gotten cancer, after their homes have been destroyed, after they’ve lost their livestock, their vineyards, their beehives and their entire livelihood,” he added.

Turkey recap contacted Ölmez Madencilik for comment, but did not receive a reply.

Locals’ distrust of the government runs deep, and not without reason. Kurşunlu was one of the thousands of villages that were forcefully emptied by security forces in the 1990s. These were mostly villages that the army suspected of aiding or sheltering PKK guerrillas.

“There used to be heavy fighting around here, with F-16s, with Cobra helicopters,” Olgaç explained. “During an operation in 1992, three of our shepherds were massacred. The Cobra helicopters gunned down even the animals. That happened in July that year. In November, they burned down the village.”

He refers to the conflict as a “civil war”.

The 105 households living here at the time moved to different parts of the country, some even abroad. Since 2002, some have started to slowly return, but it is mostly the elderly.

“Look, this village was emptied, depopulated at gunpoint in 1992,” Olgaç continued. “They have since changed the system. Now they are trying to depopulate the southeast [of Turkey] with mines, with petrol exploration, with hydroelectric dams.”

Rich in resources

Others, however, view developments as necessary to bring much-needed financial prosperity — and, in turn, stability — to a region where the GDP per capita is just above half the national average and unemployment rates are high.

According to Engin Yeşil, head of the Diyarbakır Commodity Exchange, several domestic businesses already invest in the area. Lasting peace would further help attract major investments and foreign companies that it currently lacks.

“Once this peace becomes stable and secure, development will follow, and investments will gain momentum more quickly,” Yeşil told Turkey recap.

Yeşil hopes that after decades of young people moving to the west of the country or abroad, large-scale developments could not only stop but also reverse this trend.

“The top priority should be to facilitate return to villages and rapidly complete related agricultural infrastructure investments,” Yeşil said.

Currently, Diyarbakır’s main sources of employment are agriculture and its mines. Additionally, the area is home to most of Turkey’s limited oil reserves.

In May 2025, however, Energy and Natural Resource Min. Alparslan Bayraktar announced a “game changer” after new geological surveys indicated that Diyarbakır could hold up to 6.1 billion barrels of shale oil, valued at around 420 billion dollars and enough to supply Turkey’s needs for 15 years. This comes alongside recently discovered and opened oil fields in Şırnak’s Gabar.

“Where once the sounds of gunfire echoed through the mountains, today it is the sound of production,” Min. Bayraktar wrote in a Nov. 4 social media post. He added that Gabar is the most tangible embodiment of their vision of a ‘Terror-free Turkey.’

Yeşil also pins high hopes on the recently launched $14 billion state-led development plan, the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). The initiative incorporates ambitious infrastructure works - including the country’s largest irrigation tunnel - as well as agriculture, tourism and industrial projects aimed at creating over half a million jobs.

GAP takes its name from a contentious 1980s program that reshaped Turkey’s Kurdish regions through extensive damming. This resulted in swathes of arable land, but also flooded hundreds of villages and heritage sites.

According to Yeşil, railways linking the landlocked, Kurdish-majority provinces to ports, as well as the further completion of the Silvan and Dicle Kralkızı dam projects, will be most vital for economic growth.

“After our dams are completed, the region will develop both industrially and economically,” Yeşil said. He estimates that these dams could create up to 300,000 jobs by opening vast tracts of land to irrigation and boost agricultural yields by 200–300 percent. “It would bring hope. It would create job opportunities for everyone.”

Current estimates indicate the Silvan dam alone will flood about 40 villages. This has led activists like the Bar Association’s Inan to view Yeşil’s vision for the region as detrimental to the Kurdish people’s way of life, and also to the ongoing peace process.

Some local Kurdish businessmen want to turn this [peace] process into an opportunity to invest and make a profit,” Inan said. “And, unfortunately, they have collaborators inside the bar association, the municipality and the [pro-Kurdish DEM] party.”

He claims to have received warnings, then threats, for his work and activism.

“When we visit the villages, that’s what people tell us. They say, ‘They want to drive us out of here. They are destroying our lives,’” Inan said. “If the Turkish state does not change its energy, mining and dam policies, this peace process cannot succeed.”

Turkey recap reached out to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Turkish language editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ANKARA — Turkey-EU relations have seen many ups and downs over the years, but defense cooperation has been a constant through line.

Shared security interests serve as a foundation not just for Europe’s NATO allies, but also for their current considerations on the Russia invasion of Ukraine amid a US drawback from the continent – and what to do about it.

In this context, the mutual benefits of deeper defense ties between Turkey and European nations have increasingly become the subject of political rhetoric, as highlighted in state visits by UK PM Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Ankara last week.

Yet, when it comes to Turkey’s growing defense sector, some nations’ security interests clash with other nations’ security concerns.

This is the case illustrated by recent reports about German officials allegedly pressing Athens to drop its veto on Turkey’s participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, which aims to ramp up the bloc’s defense capacity.

If included, proponents argue Turkish firms would have a multiplying effect on EU defense readiness through its established manufacturing base and interoperable weapons systems.

At the same time, mutual distrust remains high between Ankara and EU members such as France, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, where some policymakers see Turkey’s inclusion as validation for aggressive territorial policies in the Aegean Sea and North Cyprus.

Read more

ISTANBUL — When Florence Konstantina Delight talks about their childhood, the stories are primarily about bullying, abuse and hatred.

“My voice, appearance and sexuality didn’t fit with societal expectations,” Florence said.

Now, as an adult in their late-20s with a different name and gender than assigned at birth, Florence has found a way to make a living as a professional drag queen. The job involves challenging gender norms and stereotypes in a satirical, comical or theatrical way.

“I had to hide my emotions for so many years,” Florence told Turkey recap. “Drag helped me to regain power over them.”

Last Saturday, Florence sat at a dressing room table in their Istanbul home, outlining their mustache in a dark pink color. The choice of outfit and make-up are picked to reflect the mood of the drag persona that will take the stage later that night.

“Today’s emotion is rage,” Florence says. “So, my performance will be a bit more freaky.”

‘Rage’ because earlier last week news broke about an anti-LGBTQ draft law that would penalize expressions of queerness.

Proposed legislation in an upcoming judicial reform package is expected to introduce 1-3 year jail sentences for vague acts, such as promoting “behaviors contrary to biological sex” or “general morality”. It would also raise the minimum age to 25 for gender reassignment surgery and restrict access to medical support for the process.

The news has shaken Florence and members of the LGBTQ community across Turkey, where homosexuality is not illegal, but increasingly vilified.

According to recent assessments, the reported draft laws would move Turkey’s legal system closer to criminalizing the LGBTQ community, further stigmatizing and isolating individuals who already face challenges in accessing work opportunities and medical care.

“If this bill passes, my existence will be illegal,” Florence told Turkey recap.

‘Trying to remove us from the public sphere’

Yıldız Tar, the editor-in-chief of the pro-LGBTQ Kaos GL magazine, said that if enacted, the 11th Judicial Package would represent one of the most restrictive legal measures targeting queer individuals in Turkey in recent decades. He described the draft as “outrageous”.

“It threatens the very existence of LGBTQI individuals,” Tar said, adding the proposal is harsher than Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law.

“In Russia, it’s limited to public spaces, but the Turkish version also affects private spaces. The direct implication of this draft is that if you are LGBTQI, you can be imprisoned”.

Since 2015, the government has opened up a “war” against LGBTQ people, Tar told Turkey recap, stating the government’s goal is “to get rid” of queer people in public spaces.

“Our work has led to positive changes in the society, so the LGBTQI movement here in Turkey is liked by many people,” he said. “The government is trying to remove us from the public sphere, so we cannot influence the general society.”

Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long accused queer people of “perversion” and of undermining “family values”, a rhetoric that has intensified since he declared 2025 the “Year of the Family.”

For Yıldız Tar, the proposed legislation represents the next logical step in that agenda.

“We hope the draft won’t reach the commission,” he said. “If it does, it could make it to parliament [for a vote].”

Club and job hopping

Back in Istanbul, Florence refuses to disappear. Last Saturday night, the drag queen walked down Nevizade street with a pink wig, high heels and tight-fitting blue dress that drew gazes from people sitting at restaurants in the narrow alley.

“Walking the streets in drag is not just about fun and nightlife,” Florence says, strutting confidently to a club in the central Beyoğlu district. “It’s a way to question the way things are.”

However, the drag queen is also affected by growing pressure on the community. A week earlier, a Kadıköy club where Florence performed for five years, was shut down. The official reason given was due to noise complaints.

“It’s a pretext,” Florence said, noting bars on the same street blast music until dawn. “The owner was given a week’s notice.”

Florence lost their income and health insurance overnight. And Istanbul lost another queer space.

‘Visibility itself is the protest’

Florence entered the club before showtime. By 2 am, the venue is packed. Bodies move to fast electronic beats. Sweat glistens under dim lights.

On the dance floor, men kiss, trans women laugh at the bar, queer and straight guests mingle.

Then, the lights turn on. Florence and the other performers step behind the DJ booth. Florence welcomes the crowd and introduces the artists. There are no speeches, no manifestos.

“Everything about me is political,” Florence said later. “When I’m on stage, my existence becomes visible and that visibility itself is the protest.”

The crowd roars during the performances. They cheer, whistle, clap and scream while the artists dance among them. The styles and performances are as different as the artists.

There is belly dancing to a Palestinian song. Then, Florence performs to a song by the queer icon Klaus Nomi, who toured with David Bowie and was one of the first prominent pop stars to die from AIDS.

About 30 minutes later, the show ends with a Syrian drag artist spinning in the style of a whirling dervish. He then grabs the microphone and speaks about the global rise of the far right, the disappearance of safe spaces and the need for solidarity.

The crowd cheers in agreement. Then, the DJ takes over again with electronic music.

“What I love about performing is that I am sharing the stage with my chosen family,” Florence said, adding in a country where queerness is perceived as a threat, community members provide protection.

The drag scene is about more than just performance or protest, it’s also about care, Florence concludes. It is a network that fills the gaps left by families, institutions and the state.

“We build our own support systems because no one else does,” Florence said. “They can close our venues, but they can’t close what we’ve built between us.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu, Parliament correspondent

Günsu Durak, Turkish language editor

Demet Şöhret, Social media and content manager

ISTANBUL — On a Saturday morning, in Istanbul’s usually quiet northwest, the two-lane road between Lake Terkos and the Sazlıdere Dam is bustling.

Countless trucks thunder past signs from the city’s water utility, ISKI, that warn: ‘This is a drinking water basin. No construction allowed.’ They are hauling loads to thousands of government-backed housing units that are springing up nearby.

A building frenzy has gripped Istanbul’s northern green belt — home to some of the city’s most vital water reserves — following the March 2025 imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu on alleged corruption charges. This has fueled speculation that the controversial Canal Istanbul project is back on the table and that Imamoğlu’s jailing is tied to it.

Announced in 2011 by then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as his “crazy project,” the canal would carve a 45-kilometer waterway parallel to the Bosphorus, flanked by residential and commercial real estate.

Intended to ease traffic on the busy strait and provide earthquake-resistant housing, the shipping channel would cut through freshwater reserves, forests, marshes and farmland to link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.

Canal Istanbul was meant to be the crown jewel of a series of megastructures Erdoğan has planted over the past decade in Istanbul, including Europe’s largest airport, highways, tunnels and a third bridge over the Bosphorus.

However, financial woes, general unpopularity and staunch public opposition — including by Imamoğlu — along with court rulings against zoning plans, have so far prevented the canal from being built. The mayor has consistently denounced the waterway as a betrayal of Istanbulites, emphasizing its projected environmental impact and risk to the city’s freshwater supply.

“The people will stop your concrete canal, your love for luxury housing, your profiteering projects and your new betrayals of Istanbul,” Imamoğlu wrote in a social media post from prison after the first bulldozers were spotted near the Sazlıdere basin in early April.

But with much of the opposition under a judicial pressure campaign, experts told Turkey recap that little now stands in the way of a construction surge — with or without the canal — that could wipe out Istanbul’s last pockets of biodiversity and further endanger already strained water supplies.

Building on nature reserves

“Whether water will actually flow or not is not that important,” Emre Kovankaya, an urban researcher at the municipality-affiliated Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA), told Turkey recap.

Kovankaya said the canal plans have functioned as a spearhead to open the area for speculative real estate ventures. These projects, which have been bundled under the name “Yenişehir” or “New City”, are along the canal’s intended course.

The area sits atop protected forests, farmland and water basins that have gradually been opened to construction through a series of legal maneuvers, including the controversial 6306 law.

Currently, the state housing agency TOKI, its corporate arm Emlak Konut and an array of government-linked firms reportedly began building over 40,000 housing units in the region — part of the largest social housing scheme in Turkey’s history.

These residences are not luxury homes and not part of Canal Istanbul, Urban Planning Min. Murat Kurum stressed in April.

Yet Kovankaya and Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu, an urban planner at Istanbul University and former head of the city’s Chamber of Planners, believe the new homes are being built for prospecting investors.

Since the canal’s announcement, reports have surfaced of prominent figures — like former Finance Min. Berat Albayrak and Sheikha Moza, the mother of Qatar’s emir — acquiring plots along the route. Moza’s farmland was recently opened for commercial purposes by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization.

“Social housing is being used as an excuse,” Giritlioğlu told Turkey recap. She added that when the Chamber requested information from the Ministry on the social and economic status of homebuyers, they received no response.

Previously, an Istanbul court blocked the Yenişehir development plans in 2024 over environmental concerns. However, a new zoning plan was pushed through in early 2025.

The shift came despite public opposition. A recent IPA survey found 77 percent of respondents opposed the canal, citing suspected profit motives and environmental concerns.

Yet, according to a 2025 semiannual report from Emlak Konut, the Yenişehir Evleri — built in stages along the canal’s route — ranked highest on its sales list with 5,705 residences sold in the past 18 months, generating over 36 billion Turkish lira.

Meanwhile, Transport and Infrastructure Min. Abdulkadir Uraloğlu recently stated the government has not abandoned the canal and is waiting for the right financing.

“Everyone knows this project is a massive ecological disaster,” Giritlioğlu said. “Yet it is being pushed forward because there is a huge real estate profit at stake.”

Sazlıdere reservoir

One of the focal points of the current canal controversy has become the Sazlıdere Dam. The 29-year-old reservoir on Istanbul’s European side normally supplies water to about 750,000 people.

After Imamoglu’s arrest, countless TOKI-built high-rises have been shooting up just a few hundred meters from the waterfront, adjacent to a large bridge that is taking shape, where Pres. Erdoğan laid the canal’s foundation in 2021.

These constructions, part of a 2.5 million-square-meter real estate project, come on the heels of reports that the dam was stripped of its official status as a drinking water source by presidential decree in September 2022. ISKI, which oversees the dam, said it was only recently informed.

ISKI deemed the constructions in violation of the Water Basin Protection Regulation and issued a demolition order in April. Several senior ISKI officials were later detained in a broader crackdown on the opposition-run municipality. In May, a court annulled the demolition order after TOKI objected.

“In the last two decades, the growth of the Turkish economy was based on construction,” Berkan Özyer, director of Greenpeace Turkey, which has campaigned against the canal for years, told Turkey recap. “But there were some relatively working checks and balances against construction projects.”

Özyer said that resistance through the legal system or other forms of opposition seems to have become increasingly ineffective. Moreover, with municipal figures removed, little now blocks the ramping up of construction, Giritlioğlu warned, which could have devastating consequences for the city’s water supply.

According to Minister Kurum, however, Sazlıdere’s housing complies with regulations and zoning plans and will neither harm water resources nor the dam itself. Turkey’s Center for Combating Disinformation also strongly denied claims that the 2022 decision could trigger a “water crisis” in Istanbul.

Yet, even minor changes in Sazlıdere Dam’s capacity could have major consequences, Dursun Yıldız, former head of the drinking water department at Turkey’s State Hydraulic Works (DSI), told Turkey recap.

Like much of Turkey, Istanbul is under growing water stress, with scarcity differing between its two sides. About 65 percent of the population lives on the European side, while most reserves are on the Asian side, Yıldız explains.

“Sixty percent of the water demand on the European side is supplied from the Asian side,” Yıldız told Turkey recap, noting the 61 percent drop in Sazlıdere’s capacity, as projected under the Canal Istanbul plan, could increase the European side’s dependency on retrieving water from faraway sources.

”The Sazlıdere Dam is regionally important for water security," Yıldız said, adding that “the European side experiences longer drought periods, has a larger population and its stored water volume is insufficient.”

Hopes, therefore, rest on the Melen Dam, whose construction began in the mid-2000s and is scheduled to secure Istanbul’s water needs until 2071 by delivering water from the Melen River, 170 km west of the metropolis. The project, however, has been plagued by delays, faults and cracks.

Paved over

Aside from looming water challenges, a recent court-ordered report on Canal Istanbul found over 4,674 hectares of agricultural land and 2,491 hectares of forest along the route are at risk.

This could further erode the region’s unique ecology, home to an exceptional plant diversity, Cihan Erdönmez, assistant professor at Istanbul University’s Department of Forestry Engineering, told Turkey recap.

Due to its unique position between the Mediterranean and Black Sea, Istanbul hosts about 2,500 plant species, far more than countries like the Netherlands, which has 1,600 species despite being eight times larger.

However, at the hands of megaprojects, Istanbul’s forests, marshes and farmland have been shrinking rapidly in recent decades, with the third bridge, its linked highway, and the new airport estimated to have cost the city nearly 100 square kilometers of forest and more than 140 square kilometers of farmland.

”The truth is that Istanbul’s nature and greenery are continuously bleeding,” Erdönmez told Turkey recap, adding this inevitably destroys the habitats upon which many species depend.

This includes many of the world’s migratory birds — such as hundreds of thousands of storks, raptors, passerines and waterfowls — which use Istanbul as a vital pit stop each spring and autumn on their travels between Eastern Europe and Africa.

During their long flights, soaring migratory birds utilize thermal air currents to conserve energy. These are primarily found over landmasses, turning Istanbul into a bottleneck during their journeys, said Şafak Arslan, a biodiversity research coordinator at Doğa Derneği.

“[It] forces these birds to pass over,” Arslan told Turkey recap.

At the same time, migratory waterbirds consume large amounts of energy when crossing the Black Sea.

“They travel long distances and arrive exhausted,” Arslan said, adding this makes direct landings in Istanbul’s ever-decreasing wetlands necessary.

“These interventions will destroy the remaining refuge areas for the birds,” he added, referring to development projects in Istanbul’s northern green belt.

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Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

ISTANBUL — On Tuesday, Sept. 9, members of the Istanbul Bar Association stood trial in a Silivri prison courtroom. They faced charges of “making terrorist propaganda” and “spreading misleading information” for issuing a December 2024 statement calling for an investigation into the murder of two journalists in Syria.

The bar’s elected president and executive board were removed by a court order in March, and their trial has since drawn international attention. In a statement last week, 12 human rights groups described the prosecution of Istanbul’s bar as a “direct assault” on the independence of the legal profession through “vague and legally baseless” allegations.

Speaking at a Sept. 1 press event marking the start of the fall judicial session, Istanbul Bar Pres. Ibrahim Kaboğlu detailed how lawyers in Turkey have been facing a rising number of investigations, detentions and “arbitrary restrictions” on their work.

Despite such pressures, he called on the nation’s lawyers “to continue working and struggling relentlessly to make the new judicial year better than the previous one.”

As state prosecutors have expanded their corruption investigations into the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), at least 10 defense and human rights lawyers have been detained or arrested, as well.

The ongoing pressure on lawyers has deepened distrust in Turkey’s politicized judicial system, which opposition politicians claim targets dissidents while letting government allies off easy.

‘IBB Borsası’

The opposition’s sentiments of injustice in the legal system might be best encapsulated by the term ‘IBB Borsası’.

In English, the direct translation is the ‘Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Stock Exchange’. Though in political discourse, the phrase is used by opposition figures who claim some lawyers and prosecutors engage in schemes to extort individuals or companies in exchange for favorable court decisions.

"The ‘IBB Borsası’ scandal that has emerged shows with full clarity how a dual justice system has been built,” Gül Çiftçi, CHP's deputy chair for legal affairs, told Turkey recap, citing the June arrest of Mehmet Pehlivan, a lawyer representing Imamoğlu.

“On one side, [Pehlivan], who is simply carrying out his professional duties and exercising the right to defense, is unfairly held in prison. While on the other, those involved in million-dollar deals can walk free. This double standard has completely destroyed trust in the judiciary.”

She added that in the last 10 months, there have been 35 waves of arrests, detentions, investigations under the authority of the Istanbul courthouse, meaning that an operation has taken place almost every five working days.

As investigations into the CHP expand, lawyers handling the IBB defense have reported access restrictions on legal files and the interrogation of their clients without notification to their lawyers.

They also claim pro-government media outlets create negative narratives about lawyers representing opposition figures. An indictment against the IBB is expected in October.

Mehmet Pehlivan

On June 19, an Istanbul prosecutor’s office requested a meeting with Pehlivan at the Çağlayan Courthouse. He accepted, though when the meeting suddenly turned into an interrogation, Pehlivan refused to give a statement.

He cited the lack of permission from the Ministry of Justice to open an investigation against a lawyer, which the prosector’s office had not obtained and is required by law.

Pehlivan was then referred to a court, arrested and sent to Çorlu Closed Prison where he has remained for 88 days as of the publication of this article. Every item presented as the reason for Pehlivan's arrest is within the scope of the legal practice.

His detention is reviewed every month and the most recent review was conducted Friday morning, before he participated in Imamoğlu’s hearing via SEGBIS, a video conferencing system that allows people in detention to testify in court – or in Pehlivan's case, to defend a client in court.

Following Pehlivan’s video appearance, 76 bar associations condemned the practice in statement, arguing it “eliminates the right of defense.”

Pehlivan’s arrest continues on the grounds there is a “strong suspicion of a crime.” At the time of writing, the Ministry of Justice had yet to issue an investigation permit for Pehlivan.

Mehmet Yıldırım

In stark contrast, is the case of lawyer Mehmet Yıldırım. Early last month, CHP Chair Özgür Özel claimed Yıldırım was on good terms with prosecutors and used his influence to request payments from families of detainees in exchange for more favorable court rulings.

Özel said he had evidence, including voice recordings and WhatsApp messages, to support his allegations. A day later, Yıldırım was detained while trying to flee to Greece. After one more day, he was released on judicial control with a travel ban.

The Council of Judges and Prosecutors has yet to take action regarding the original complaint filed against the prosecutor at the center of Özel’s allegations.

Mücahit Birinci

Another case involves lawyer Mücahit Birinci, a prominent politician with the Justice and Development Party (AKP). He allegedly visited businessman Murat Kapki, who was under arrest in the IBB investigation, and offered him $2 million to sign a prepared statement against Imamoğlu, Özel, Pehlivan and others.

Kapki refused the offer and reported his experience to the prosecutor’s office, filing a criminal complaint on Aug. 12. The next day, Özel unveiled the criminal complaint document during a live broadcast.

The prosecutor’s office then launched an investigation. This time, permission was requested and granted from the Ministry of Justice. On Aug. 26, Birinci gave a court statement and he was released under judicial control.

Justice Min. Yılmaz Tunç, however, criticized the opposition regarding the allegations. While stating that the claims had no connection to the judiciary or the prosecutor’s office, in his capacity as the head of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, he said the petitions filed against prosecutors were “empty”.

‘Devaluing’ lawyers

Commenting on recent developments, lawyer Kasım Akbaş, an advisor to the chair of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, said that the difficulties faced by the defense lawyers in Turkey are not new.

“For decades, lawyers in Turkey have been fighting attacks on their clients’ right to defense and on their profession,” Akbaş told Turkey recap.

He added, “In some recent high-profile trials, we see that the actions described as ‘crimes’ by lawyers are entirely legal activities. The strategies of lawyers – how to meet with their detained clients and how to formulate defense arguments – form the basis of the criminal accusations.”

Akbaş, went on, arguing that an attack on the legal profession is the first step in a systematic and deliberate process of rights violations.

“The ‘devaluing’ of the lawyer, who is the representative of the right to a defense – one of the most important components of the right to a fair trial – makes the trial unfair,” he continued.

“In fact, one can no longer even speak of a trial, because where there is no defense, there is only a ‘pre-judgement’ and not a ‘trial.’”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

ISTANBUL — The Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul headquarters is in an unlikely place, on the edge of town, surrounded by high-rise residential buildings, shopping malls and large motorways. It’s far from everything, difficult to get to.

But this did not stop hundreds of demonstrators from showing up on Monday morning. They came to protest the court decision that dismissed the leadership of the party’s Istanbul branch.

Inside the headquarters, party officials, including dismissed Istanbul Provincial Chair Özgür Çelik, were determined to defend their building against what they called government interference.

A night earlier, riot police surrounded the headquarters, erecting metal barricades and closing some of the nearby roads. Despite being outnumbered, the protesters Monday attempted to push through the blockade and reach the party building.

The police response was swift. Pepper spray was used indiscriminately. An old man fainted and collapsed on the pavement. Police then charged forward and chased students fleeing the scene, detaining several of them.

“Right now, those in government are taking away our rights, one by one,” exclaimed Tülay Özbay, a middle-aged CHP voter.

“This blockade is not just against the CHP’s building, it is a blockade of the whole Turkish Republic,” she told Turkey recap. “I am not a provocateur. The people here are not terrorists. Those who are doing this are the real traitors of the nation.”

Özbay was holding a sign that read: “According to the 2024 rule of law global index, Turkey is 117th among 142 countries.” But she said she retains hope for the CHP, which was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.

“We are the children of Atatürk. We believe in hope in the most hopeless of times. That is why I am here today, too,” she said.

Court decisions

A Sept. 2 court decision dismissed the CHP Istanbul leadership on allegations of bribery during the party’s internal elections. CHP stated they did not recognize the decision.

They claim only the Supreme Election Council (YSK) has the jurisdiction, not a lower court, to overturn the outcome of a party congress, and that no objections were made in the appropriate period.

Despite the objections, Gürsel Tekin was appointed as a trustee (kayyım) CHP Istanbul provincial chair until the next party congress is convened and a new leadership is elected.

Tekin was himself a former Istanbul chair of CHP but has since fallen out and distanced himself from the party. He is also said to be close to former CHP chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who may be reappointed as party head following a Sept. 15 trial on the CHP 2023 Congress.

“I think the September 2 court decision was even more serious than the March 19 operation [against Imamoğlu],” said Berk Esen, assoc. prof. of political science at Sabancı University.

“There, a CHP-controlled municipality was interfered with, but the leadership remained with politicians supported by the party's grassroots. But with the September 2 court decision, the government judiciary is attempting to replace the CHP Istanbul leadership. This is direct interference with the internal functioning of a party,” he told Turkey recap.

Some demonstrators felt the gravity of the moment. One of them was Enes Karakaş, a recent graduate from Boğaziçi University, where a trustee appointment sparked large protests in 2021.

“I’m not from CHP,” Karakaş said with a laugh. “This is a bigger issue than CHP. They say so themselves. I’m a socialist. The government's interference with opposition parties affects all of us. That is why we are standing here today against this attack.”

Karakaş also joined the protests in March when Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu was arrested. He was detained by the police and spent a month in jail for his involvement in the protests.

New trustee, new HQ

Tekin arrived at the CHP Istanbul headquarters Monday afternoon. The crowd was hostile to him, hurling water bottles as he spoke to the press. Riot police then used pepper spray to disperse angry protesters and make way for Tekin to enter the building.

Shortly after, the CHP announced they had officially closed the party headquarters and moved it to another location. They also announced their Istanbul provincial congress would be held on Sept. 24 to vote out the government-appointed trustee.

Hearing the news, the protesters started to slowly disperse.

“I was with Gürsel Tekin just now,” said Bahar Yolcan, out of earshot of the demonstrators going home. She said she served as the president of the CHP’s Istanbul women's branch under Tekin’s first tenure. “We remained friends even after our appointments ended.”

She believes the party was illegitimately taken over by a new group, led by former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, following their loss in the 2023 general elections.

In her view, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was ousted as leader of CHP through bribes. When asked about the independence of the judiciary, she maintained the Sept. 2 court decision was appropriate.

“I saw what happened inside the party building. It was seriously vandalized,” Bahar Yolcan added. “I could not recognize the place. Ekrem Imamoğlu is behind all of this. God willing, he will never be president. He is more dangerous than Erdoğan.”

She continued, stating Tekin supports democracy and that he would not abuse his re-appointment.

“This is a temporary measure. The same will happen in Ankara. So what? Will it be the end of the world?” Yolcan asked.

According to her, the party will not be easily split. But she also thinks that those proven guilty of bribery need to leave – with Ekrem Imamoğlu and Özgür Özel to begin with.

“Founding a new party is difficult. Being successful is even more so,” Esen said. “If Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his team establish a new party, it will most certainly fail. I think they know this themselves.”

Esen believes the ongoing government pressure on the party has, overall, strengthened the unity and the base’s support for the leadership.

“Gürsel Tekin entering the building with a police escort did not look good,” he added. “This will never go down well with the party members. I still think the party leadership will be dismissed on September 15. But will Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu be ready for this? It will be more difficult.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

HATAY — Everyone from Guvenç, a village in the mountains of Turkey’s Hatay province, has been living in a container camp since the earthquakes on Feb. 6, 2023. About 500 people are housed here, in the nearby town of Hassa, where shelter and services are provided by Türkiye Petrolleri, the Turkish state oil company.

At the camp entrance, elderly women sit, drinking çay, while children play outdoors among wandering ducks, cows, dogs and chickens.

“It is important for us to continue living as we would in our village,” said Söngul, one of the women.

Inside the camp, older men rest in front of the containers and women – most of whom are under 30 – chat with their little kids in their arms.

Each container houses a family, on average about six people, in a 21 square-meter space. One of the camp’s containers serves as a mosque and children have transport services that take them to local schools.

Two and a half years after the earthquakes, residents of the affected areas are still waiting for answers and permanent housing. Though some appreciate the services provided in their camps, a feeling of abandonment is growing in some communities, such as the Dom.

The 2023 earthquakes left an estimated 3.3 million people homeless in Turkey and many of them await relocation as new housing projects are built throughout the nation’s south. To date, about 250,000 new homes have been completed in quake-hit provinces, according to the Presidency's Directorate of Communications, which also states the government aims to complete a total of 453,000 homes by the year-end.

Still, resettlement remains a challenge. Officials from the state’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) told Turkey recap relocating families into permanent housing may take up to three years in Iskenderun and five years in Antakya, the city that saw the most extensive earthquake damage.

Allocating homes and flats

In the Hassa container camp, families have been waiting for months for an exact date to move to the new village of single-family homes that the government is building for them. They were all homeowners in the old village. For that reason, each family will receive a single-family home.

Those who lived in cities will receive a flat in the new apartment complexes built by TOKI, the state’s Housing Development Administration. In both cases, the government subsidizes 60 percent of the new accommodation and offers low-interest loans to pay for the other 40 percent.

The order of applications processed for new housing is based on the last digit of citizen’s identity documents. The size of the accommodation will be decided by lottery. In contrast, those who were tenants before the earthquakes will have to find new housing on their own.

The government told the residents of Guvenç their houses would be ready by Ramadan (in March) but they have not yet received their keys.

“We want to move into our new homes now,” said Esma Gedik, one of the residents. “All that is left to do is lay the paving tiles on the streets, but there is no one doing it.”

At the time of reporting, Guvenç residents were not aware of a new date for relocation. TOKI and the Hatay Governor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this report.

Camp conditions

Gedik also said the summer has not been difficult for her family, adding she is happy with the infrastructure and state services she has received in the camp to date.

“The situation is good and no one needs help because here you don't have to pay rent, water or electricity,” Gedik told Turkey recap.

Her opinion contrasts with that of the Hayata Destek association, which works to provide aid in various areas affected by earthquakes. Organization members claim that high temperatures – especially this summer – are affecting residents' health.

“The driest days in recent years are being experienced,” said Refik Karaçaylı, project manager of the Hatay program of Hayata Destek. “Rainfall during the 2024-2025 rainy season was sixty percent below seasonal norms.”

Karaçaylı added the Defne district of Hatay reached 48° C, making it one of the hottest regions in Turkey.

Usually, the camps are located in areas without shade or trees, meaning there is no shelter from the hot climate. This also causes temperatures inside the containers to rise.

“Although most containers in cities have air conditioning, they get so hot that, when they are not occupied, many of the objects inside are damaged by the high temperatures and can even pose a danger, such as overheated batteries or lighters,” said Rojda Dinç, the head of Hayata Destek’s Kahramanmaraş program.

Furthermore, water cuts implemented by the government in different parts of Turkey this summer have also complicated the situation.

“Frequent water cuts not only make daily life difficult, but also pose a risk to hygiene. The heat further exacerbates hygiene conditions,” said Hale Younso, leader of Hayata Destek’s program in Adıyaman.

These situations are even more serious for the most vulnerable communities, such as the elderly, children and people with disabilities, who are also present in the camps.

Unequal distribution of services

In Mehmet Kuyumcu’s camp, located between Iskenderun and Antakya, the problems are similar. He works for Sivil Düşler Derneği, a civil society organization, and noted in his visits to various camps that some have cafes, supermarkets, bookshops and other services – often provided by private companies.

In the AFAD-run camp where he lives, however, there aren't such amenities as the services in AFAD camps can vary widely. This summer, he said his camp went five days without running water and four days without electricity. He added he lost 15 kilos due to the heat and hunger is also an issue in the camp.

“People are starting to sell the materials from the containers because of poverty, so they can buy food for themselves,” Kuyumcu said, adding some people go to bed on an empty stomach.

He is part of the Dom community, like about 60 percent of the camp's inhabitants, most of whom are not eligible for new housing as they did not previously own property.

In Turkey, the Dom community is highly marginalized and some live semi-nomadic lifestyles, regularly migrating for seasonal work while facing challenges in accessing public education and health care.

Before the earthquake, part of Kuyumcu’s community lived on abandoned public land, and he said the lack of regulations has now led to even greater uncertainty.

“We have no idea what will happen when they take away the containers,” Kuyumcu told Turkey recap. “Because before the earthquake, the communities living here were already more vulnerable. In this process, we have no idea where exactly the solution will come from. They don't inform us. This will become a massive, large-scale problem.”

TOKI developments

Back in Hassa, some people have been living in the newly-built TOKI flats for over a year now. One of them is Feride, a local resident who moved into her new apartment in August 2024. Her new flat is 85 sqm, has three bedrooms and a living room.

Previously, her family had several properties, but she said the government only gives one unit per family. To build these cities, the government contracts the services to private construction companies from different parts of the country.

The new town in Hassa has the capacity for 40,000 inhabitants and is currently 90 percent occupied.

There are supermarkets, a school and a mosque as new workplaces remain under construction. However, Feride said several services are still missing.

“We still don't have a bazaar or anything like that. It would be better if we had one,” she told Turkey recap. “We also don't have a health center or a pharmacy, so we still have to go back and forth to the hospital.”

Rebuilding after disaster

The new Hassa is being built on vacant land in an area that the government has designated as safe. Though on private land in the affected cities, there are construction companies that are rebuilding in the same places where the buildings had collapsed.

This is the case of Ibrahim Karaoğlanoğlu Caddesi, one of the main avenues in Iskenderun. Mustafa Batuhan Güleç lived in a building on one of the plots on the avenue. On Feb. 6, 2023, 29 people in the building died and 11 survived. His body has not yet been found.

On the same site, a private company is now overseeing a construction project. Turkey recap spoke to two people supervising the site who said they are constructing safer buildings after the earthquakes.

To achieve this, they said they are injecting 20 meters of cement into the ground to stabilize the soil, which is weak due to its proximity to the sea. On top of this, they lay an iron grid, and instead of columns, they are using horizontal iron bars 20 cm wide and 2 meters long to support the structure.

Rebuilding in the same plots as collapsed buildings is a recurring practice in all affected areas.

Although the buildings may be constructed to higher standards, they may not always be safe, according to Dr. Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu, a member of the Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University (ITÜ) and a former president of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects.

“In Adıyaman, once the earthquake was over, new plans were decided. They are the same as before,” Giritlioğlu told Turkey recap, stating city planning was not redesigned to accommodate rapid evacuation in the case of a future disaster.

“Once again, there is only one main road and new buildings. If there is another earthquake tomorrow, there will be the same consequences,” she added.

Critically, Giritlioğlu also said construction projects proceed with systematic shortcomings in government oversight, such as structural audits and follow-up inspections.

“When construction is complete and everything is done according to the project, the municipality issues a document certifying that the building is legal. But after that, they don't check it again,” she said.

“So what happens? They cut the column at the bottom. They expand the area. They create a soft ground. They remove the walls,” she warned. “And so, the building can become unsafe after receiving the residence document because the municipalities don't check it again.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

DAMASCUS — The midday sun blazes down on the ruins of Jobar on the outskirts of Damascus, where Zakaria walks through the wreckage, weapon over his shoulder. This neighborhood saw some of the heaviest fighting in Syria’s 14-year civil war. For miles, not a single building is left intact.

“I spent ten years living in Istanbul, in the Esenler district," Zakaria remembers. "I was only a kid when we left Syria."

He was one of the roughly 3.6 million Syrians who sought refuge in Turkey over the past decade. He, too, would learn that Turkish people were fed up with the number of Syrians in their country. The common refrain for Syrian young men was: "Why didn’t they stay and fight for their country?"

Zakaria did – or at least, he went back. Four years ago, tired of facing daily discrimination, poor economic prospects, and after an unsuccessful attempt to cross into Greece, he chose to return to the country he only remembered as a small child.

"Turkey was no good anymore. I went to Idlib and joined Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS]. I fought with them in the countryside until the fall of the [Assad] regime."

Now, Zakaria serves in the new Syrian Army. Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship came to a sudden and unexpected end on December 8, 2024. That day, Syrian refugees in their thousands filled the streets in Istanbul’s Fatih district to celebrate. Almost every single one said they wished to return.

In the following six months, at least 273,000 have returned from Turkey, according to Turkish Vice Pres. Cevdet Yılmaz. This makes up the bulk of the half-million Syrians who moved back during this period, and pro-government news reports suggest the pace of returns has increased in the summer months.

What is common among those returning is a deep emotional connection to their homeland. Despite the damage and the country's current state, the desire to live and breathe Syrian air was constantly emphasized.

‘Racism became very common’

"This is our land, this is where we belong," said Ahmad, who returned to Syria in late June. "Assad went to the bottom pit of hell, so we came back."

Yet, it will take years to rebuild his hometown, Aleppo, where the city center was extensively damaged during the war.

"Everything has changed so much," grumbles Ahmad as he accidentally speeds the wrong way down a one-way road.

It had only been five days since he moved back. At 18, he left Syria and started a new life in Bursa, where he ran a corner store. Now 32, he is trying to rebuild his family shop in Aleppo, which was destroyed in the conflict.

"Racism became very common [in Turkey]. The kids were getting bullied at school. You know what happened in Kayseri [on June 30, 2024]. My uncle was there. His car got trashed. After that, he moved back to Syria immediately after Assad went."

The events he was referring to were the wave of anti-refugee riots that spread across Turkey in July 2024. It started with rumors about a Syrian man sexually harassing a minor in the city of Kayseri. Angry mobs rampaged through the streets, attacking Syrians and their property.

Dozens were injured, hundreds were arrested, and at least one fatality was recorded. Though not all Syrians share the same perceptions or experiences.

"The racism wasn’t too bad," said Muhammad Rabia, a young textile shop owner in Aleppo’s bazaar. "I loved the people in Istanbul so much. I was sad to leave all my friends there. I was the first to come back in my family to fix our [bombed] house and open a shop here. Also, I wanted to be in the country I belong to. I love Turkey, but this is my homeland."

Economic factors

The other most-cited reason for leaving Turkey was the poor economic conditions. Refugees were among the worst hit by the cost-of-living crisis that started in 2018. Finding a decent job and an affordable apartment – where the landlord would accept Syrians – became a major challenge for most.

"The racism was bad, but the economy was even worse," Ahmad said. "No one can get by on minimum wage these days – it isn’t enough. And on top of that: price hike, price hike, price hike to our rent and produce, but hardly ever to our salaries. Here, at least, we own our houses and businesses."

"When Assad fled on December 8, it was like a dream," he continued. "We went to Turkey thinking we’d stay for two or three months. That became 14 years. That day, we all decided to move home. But my mother was ill, so I couldn’t come immediately. She eventually passed away last month. I buried her and packed up."

Syrians under temporary protection who decide to return to Syria for good are considered to have made a voluntary return. When they go through this process, their temporary protection status is canceled. Ahmad, however, was told he would be allowed to go back to Turkey for a week per year to visit his mother’s grave.

The country that awaits returning Syrians is very different from the one they left behind – and not just politically. Years of intense fighting left a mark on almost every part of the country. Except for the old town of Damascus and the odd small town or village, it is difficult to find a neighborhood not littered with bombed-out buildings.

The housing stock is dilapidated, and the infrastructure is in ruins. There was electricity for only a few hours each day in June. Most places had running water, but extended cuts were expected in August as drought conditions intensify.

"I expected issues with main services like transport and water," says Muhammad Rabia, back in his shop. "I thought I was prepared. But what I saw when I came back really shocked me. And the negative effects of war are reflected in Syrian society, too. People are impatient and easily angered. Divorces are up. Despite all this, we are all coming back – including some of my relatives from Germany. And we are also bringing back capital and knowledge."

Salaries are awfully low. Even with the recently announced 200 percent hike, the average salary of an engineer in public employment is below $100 a month. For context, the most basic electricity consumption of a family in Aleppo comes to around $50 in summer months.

Political instability in Syria

When asked about Syria’s new political leadership under Pres. Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Ahmad replied:

"I haven’t made up my mind yet … I’m mostly focused on the reconstruction [efforts]. Let them deliver on that, and then we’ll see. But I can say that their soldiers are gentlemen – not like the old filth."

Of course, not all Syrians in Turkey are in a rush to move back. Among them is Nour, a young woman working in journalism and civil society in Istanbul.

Unlike the others we interviewed, who were from the Arab Sunni Muslim majority, she is from the Druze minority. She has visited her homeland twice since Assad's fall but has decided not to move back for the time being.

"The first visit was interesting because, as Syrians, some part of our mind cannot imagine a square without an Assad picture in it," she reflects, sitting by the seaside in Istanbul.

"During that first visit, I saw the old reality meeting with the new. You could see both flags on the same building. They painted over one but forgot the other,” she continues. “Even crossing the border was a completely different experience – it was like kicking the door open and entering without permission."

Nour says she remains suspicious of the new Islamist government and the extremist groups being integrated into the security apparatus. From the outset, the new army was engulfed in a series of human rights abuses and other atrocities, often targeting minorities.

Her concerns were reinforced when sectarian violence reached its peak in March with the massacres of Alawites in the coastal region and in July with armed attacks on Druze groups in Sweida – Nour’s hometown.

"I do not trust the new authorities," she says. "All of us are threatened. You suddenly feel that you are a minority. You now feel that maybe your brother, when he is in a car or bus, because he is Druze, he will be killed without having a chance to say ‘Oh, I’m a communist’ or that ‘I lived in Damascus since 2006.’”

She adds: “We have these jokes among us: ‘It does not matter what you wrote on Facebook, because the person who will kill you will not read it.’"

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

ADANA — Devastating news arrived late on Wednesday, July 23. Ten firefighters had perished while combating towering flames in a forest in Eskişehir.

For over a month, wildfires had scorched tens of thousands of hectares of land across Turkey. In June alone, over 612 wildfires were reported, according to official statistics. Throughout July, wildfires intensified across the country, a rolling crisis that peaked with the Eskişehir tragedy.

“Pour water all over me,” a middle-aged firefighter pleaded in a video that circulated online. “Save me. I’m burning,” he told colleagues as a blaze rose behind him in Eskişehir.

Twenty-four people, including 19 forestry workers and five Search and Rescue Association (AKUT) members, were caught in the fire when the wind suddenly changed direction and turned the flames toward them, Agriculture and Forestry Min. İbrahim Yumaklı said in a statement.

Encircled by flames, the firefighters saw their deaths as inevitable and began exchanging their final goodbyes. Soon after, news reports revealed some of them were new hires. One of the survivors had joined the force two months earlier. While one of the workers who died, Tolunay Kocaman, had been employed for only one month.

Along with fatal incidents in Izmir and Bursa, wildfires have caused at least 16 deaths in Turkey so far this year. The losses once again put a spotlight on the lack of fire preparedness in Turkey – both in staffing and aircrafts – despite the growing frequency of wildfires in the Mediterranean region.

While most citizens reacted to the firefighter deaths by expressing sadness and grief, many on social media asked: How could this be? How could the government allow this? How many more wildfires do we need to learn from our mistakes?

A set of problems

According to Doğan Kantarcı, a retired forestry professor at Istanbul University, the Turkish firefighting force currently has a number of systemic shortcomings. This includes a lack of sufficient training for newcomers, who appear to begin their work too close to the start of fire season.

Kantarcı has taught thousands of forestry workers, and says he’s never been so gloomy about the state of the force. The number one problem, he said, is the inadequate amount of on-the-ground personnel.

“They need to be able to go in three rounds,” he said, referring to work shifts. He added members of the force were “once, one of the best in the world,” but are now overworked and lacking in numbers.

Seconding this concern, one forestry worker who requested anonymity told Turkey recap that he didn’t sleep for the first two days of the wildfires in Hatay last month, when at least 500 hectares of forests were burned and three villages were evacuated in the process.

According to the professor, firefighters exposed to smoke or toxic gas should be rotated every three to four hours.

“There is no such thing as rounds,” the worker said between coughs. Once a fire expands, it is up to the squad on the ground to extinguish it without back-up support, he added.

Yet, it is not only personnel or moments to rest or eat that are lacking, according to the worker, it is also personal protective equipment and gear.

“We’re nearing the end of the season, and we haven’t received new uniforms or headlights,” he said. “I haven’t even seen an oxygen mask this season.”

Meanwhile, firefighters also worry about their compensation amid high inflation in Turkey. According to local media reports, a text message found on the phone of one of the deceased firefighters asked: “Will we be able to get our salary this month with a raise?”

“Of course, they had this on their minds when they went to that fire,” the worker said of his late colleagues, who passed away in Eskişehir. “I’m not saying that’s what caused their deaths, but it was certainly on their minds.”

Numbers in the air

“A wildfire is a war, and it’s a war against hell,” Prof. Kantarcı said, adding that combating fires in Turkey is made more difficult by the lack of firefighting aircrafts in the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK), the nation’s civil aviation agency.

Turkey rents aircrafts from Russia instead of using its own fleet to battle summer wildfires, “so that some people can profit off of the deals,” Kantarcı argued.

But the model remains insufficient, he said. Flying a plane as close and swiftly as one can to the flames “is a patriotic duty,” which also calls for deep knowledge of and emotional ties to the geography, Kantarcı suggested: “Someone from here should be doing the job.”

In the summer of 2021, during the catastrophic Muğla-Antalya fires that burned for weeks, the government was heavily criticized for failing to deploy the aerial firefighting fleet in time. The ministry, then too, had turned to rented Russian planes, one of which crashed in the southeast, killing eight people.

Villagers and volunteers had resorted to carrying plastic buckets of water and throwing soil on the fire with shovels. The images then, like now, showed people trying to put out the flames with bottled water as shocked villagers held their heads between their palms.

The professor said less forest area would have been burned last month if the THK’s Canadian, double-engine Scooper CL-215 planes – with a near-five tons of water capacity – were deployed as in 2021.

The Presidential Budget and Strategy Directorate’s most recent report covering 2024 stated: “During the fire season, a total of 105 firefighting helicopters, 27 planes, 14 unmanned aerial vehicles, one command plane, and six command helicopters were deployed.”

Assets registered in the General Directorate’s 2024 inventory included: nine helicopters, 10 planes, and 10 unmanned aerial vehicles. However, THK, which is overseen by a trustee appointed in 2019, put eight amphibious CL-215 planes up for sale in May.

The set of shortcomings point to the broader issues caused by funding reallocation and the weakening of critical institutions under the current government, according to the professor.

“They can spend so much on Diyanet but not the firefighting force,” he said, referring to Turkey’s religious authority, which spent over three times more than the forestry directory in the first half of the year, highlighting the latter’s gradual budget cuts over recent years.

‘Expendable’ lives

The United Agricultural and Forestry Workers Union (BTO-SEN) made a statement after the tragedy in Eskişehir, saying: “In this system, the lives of forest and search-and-rescue workers are considered expendable.” Public services are being downsized and positions are being reduced, it added.

“Those responsible are not held accountable. Negligence is turning into a deliberate management choice,” the union argued.

The union’s leader, Mehmet Çak said he thinks the death of 10 workers was also the result of a wider problem of negligence over worker deaths in Turkey.

“The cheapest life there is, is that of a worker,” he told Turkey recap, explaining that most of the complaints he hears from firefighting union members are about the lack of gear and training programs, some of which have been cut in recent years.

One example is the 2019 closure of the Forest Workers Training Center, once located within the Dokuz Eylül University in western Izmir province and one of Turkey’s two major training facilities for wildfire response.

Turkey’s Communications Directorate, which functions under the presidency, on July 27 made a statement, claiming that “the closure of the center did not hinder training activities.” The center was closed after evaluating “efficiency and infrastructure,” the directorate stated.

In 2024, at least 1,897 workers across all sectors died in Turkey, according to Health and Safety Labor Watch. Eight percent of those deaths were attributed to workers in the agriculture and forestry sectors.

Turkey’s forestry directorate did not respond to interview requests with firefighters and survivors for this report despite numerous attempts.

Meanwhile, climate change heightens the risk of wildfires in Turkey, raising the pressure on both firefighters and Turkey’s forests, which cover roughly 29 percent of the country’s surface, according to the Forestry General Directorate.

In 2024, some 3,797 wildfires were reported nationwide, according to official numbers. That is over a thousand more wildfires than a decade ago.

The growing intensity and frequency of wildfires mark not only the landscape, but also the minds of residents who are increasingly impacted by natural disasters.

The first night of the Eskişehir fires, a video from the nearby province of Sakarya showing searing orange flames accompanied by the wails of animals quickly went viral.

For many watching the fires unfold on their screens, the sounds of desperate animals crying and forests charring were more than distressing. They represented a possible glimpse into a future shaped by climate chaos paired with a lack of disaster-readiness.

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent

ISTANBUL — Turkey has the world’s seventh-largest agriculture sector. It produces three quarters of the world’s hazelnuts along with millions of tons of cherries, grapes, almonds, walnuts and other fruits.

But in April, many of those crops were damaged by a devastating late-spring frost. The freak weather event caused irretrievable losses on farms in almost half the nation’s provinces, deepening pressure on global and domestic food prices, which were already rising at a record rate in Turkey.

The impacts are immediate and long-lasting, as orchards may take years to recover. Among the worst affected sectors was the world’s dried apricot market, nearly two-thirds of which is supplied by Turkey.

The nation’s apricot output is set to collapse from 750,000 tons to 10,000 this year, contributing to a near 50 percent fall in global production and driving up prices by as much as 300 percent in recent months.

“This was like an earthquake in agriculture,” Omer Fethi Gürer, a deputy for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Turkey recap.

Gürer represents the rural province of Niğde, where an estimated 95 percent of all apple production evaporated. He also serves on a parliamentary commission addressing the frost’s aftermath.

Though estimates vary, the commission currently puts state-insured (TARSIM) farmers’ losses at over 21 billion liras with expected annual fruit output plunging 7 million tons. As a result, up to a million agricultural jobs could vanish, hitting Turkey’s second-biggest employment sector and a major source of work for women.

Recovery efforts are ongoing, but complicated by farmers’ limited access to protective measures, insurance and state support amid rising maintenance costs, according to agriculture experts.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s agriculture sector remains highly vulnerable to erratic weather patterns, which occur with increasing frequency due to global climate change.

Unseasonal frost, unusual prices

The most destructive unseasonal frost in over 30 years spread across Anatolia from April 10 to 13, with temperatures dipping to -15°C just as fruit trees bloomed. Farmers scrambled day and night, lighting car tires and paraffin candles or spraying smoke and water to fight the freeze – mostly to no avail.

“I spent my nights there [in the field] until the morning,” said Doğan Aralongun, one of the few grape farmers from Manisa who managed to save most of his crops by using a sprinkler system.

“I constantly checked the thermometer. As soon as it dropped below one degree Celsius, I turned on the sprinkling systems,” Aralongun told Turkey recap, adding that his low-altitude location closer to Manisa’s warmer center also helped him avert the worst impacts.

“This was the first time frost hit in such a widespread manner,” Ali Bülent Erdem, head of the farmers’ union Çiftçi-Sen, told Turkey recap. “It affected almost all crops, but especially perennial plants.”

About half of the financial losses were grapes, while hazelnuts and apples were also severely weather-beaten. The western Anatolian province of Manisa, famous for its Sultaniye grapes, was hit worst: up to 90 percent of its vineyards were ravaged, amounting to 10.97 billion liras in damages.

“This year, instead of 40 tons of dried grapes, I’ll only produce 20 or 25 tons,” Haşim Lımanlar, a grape farmer in Manisa, told Turkey recap.

Compounding the blow, Lımanlar said most costs were incurred before the frost, while the damaged buds will likely trim next season’s yield by another 10-20 percent.

“It’s frustrating … After all, it’s hard work lost,” Lımanlar said. He added that switching to growing his grapes in more weather-resistant greenhouses is currently out of the question due to the high costs.

All these losses will primarily be transferred to consumers, Gamze Saner, a professor at Ege University’s agricultural department, told Turkey recap.

“As a product’s supply decreases, prices at wholesale and retail markets rise,” Saner said. “This increase triggers food inflation.”

Turkey’s food inflation has long been a pressing problem, with annual rates nearly five times higher than the world average.

Citing the cold snap as the key culprit, Turkey’s Central Bank raised its 2025 food inflation forecast to 26.5 percent. This is set to further deepen the country’s growing wealth distribution, Saner warned. Meanwhile, the government stressed that the country’s strategic food supply is not at risk.

Yet prices for certain affected products, such as grapes, have remained relatively stable for now, farmers told Turkey recap. Ömer Ayhanlı, a vineyard owner in Denizli who lost about 20 percent of his wine grapes – worth roughly half a million lira – said already low demand from wineries would keep prices from spiking.

Nutella problems

Besides fueling domestic food inflation, the frost’s impacts ripple through international markets. Especially crops where Turkey is a top producer have seen significant price jumps.

Turkey supplies roughly 70 percent of the world’s hazelnuts. Italian Nutella maker Ferrero snaps up a quarter of that. With an expected third of the nuts now lost, Nutella fans must brace for expensive spreads in the coming months.

“Currently, prices have increased by approximately 50 percent,” Özer Akbaşlı, a hazelnut farmer from Giresun, told Turkey recap, whose crops survived thanks to cultivating at a lower altitude.

The nut’s value is expected to climb further. In 2014, a similar frost event killed 30 percent of the country’s hazelnuts, tripling global prices.

Such sharp swings in exports risk can suspend contracts, shake market confidence and potentially shift foreign investors toward competing countries, Gamze Saner noted. However, some foreign investors see it as a moment to bank on scarcity.

Unable to insure

To shield farmers from weather-driven losses, Turkey launched TARSIM in 2006 – a state-sponsored insurance scheme with the government covering about half to two‑thirds of the premium. To qualify, farmers must register their land in the Farmer Registration System (ÇKS).

Yet, small family farms often work informally, Gürer explained. They share land and lack title deeds. This leaves them unable to register or secure insurance. Of 5.5 million farmers affiliated with the Union of Chambers of Agriculture, only 2.3 million appear in the ÇKS. About half of them are insured.

Moreover not all insured farmers are covered for frost damage, grape grower Ayhanlı explained, citing the high cost and rarity of such events.

“We got insurance for hail. But we hadn’t done it for cold,” Ayhanlı told Turkey recap.

He added that getting compensation for frost damage can be difficult, noting that if the cold hits just as the vine begins to bud, insurers may claim there’s no damage and refuse to cover it.

Another reason many farmers remain unregistered, Bülent said, is the limited state support offered to registered farmers. Yet that decision may now prove costly.

Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly vowed to compensate all registered farmers, including those without insurance. Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Nilgün Ök reiterated during a July 17 meeting of the special frost commission that only registered farmers would receive compensation.

These moves will exclude many unregistered farmers, Gürer emphasized during a recent commission meeting, adding that the lack of damage assessments for those without ÇKS registration has left the frost’s true impact unclear.

“Given the scale of this disaster, damages for all producers, whether registered in the Farmer Registration System or not, should be covered,” Gürer told Turkey recap. He also called for debts to be deferred, interests erased and additional credit lines.

Currently, farmers’ total bank debt stands at a whopping 1.03 trillion lira. Meanwhile, farmers note that frost damage has skyrocketed maintenance costs, raising fears of further crippling debt.

“Producers have no money in their pockets to cover expenses,” Gürer said, adding that future harvests could be at risk as farmers are unable to afford essential supplies.

The special commission’s head, AKP lawmaker Adem Korkmaz, has acknowledged TARSIM’s gaps in coverage and roll-out, stating that Turkey’s insurance model must adapt to rising climate risks. According to Korkmaz, the solution is a basic compulsory insurance and an optional one with better coverage.

As of mid-July, TARSIM has paid out about 17 percent of the estimated damages, according to the agriculture minister. While relief for registered farmers may take until November, Erdoğan said at an agriculture meeting on June 28, where he also laid out a new loan package to finance greenhouses.

Turkey recap requested comment from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.

Climate change coming for all

With no country in the Mediterranean harder hit by climate change than Turkey, Levent Kurnaz, head of Boğaziçi University’s Center for Climate Change Studies, urges farmers to look beyond mitigation measures that guard crops from cold.

“Agricultural frost is a matter of chance,” Kurnaz told Turkey recap.

Though connected to climate change, it won’t necessarily bring more frequent shock frosts. Moreover, warming poles will eventually leave no cold air to spark them, he explained. Instead, Kurnaz warns, drought and water scarcity loom as far more potent threats.

“We have to stay away from crops that need a lot of water,” Kurnaz said, adding Turkey should also avoid non-native produce, like avocados.

A recent UN report noted that 80 percent of Turkey’s agricultural land faces drought in the next five years as global temperatures climb. The first nine months of 2025 mark the country’s driest period in over 50 years. This has further battered yields, including strategic foods, such as cereals.

“After dealing with frost, now the issue is drought,” Bülent said. “It’s very clear, this agricultural system is not sustainable.”

In Denizli, the vineyard owner Ayhanlı stays defiant. He now hedges his risks by diversifying crops and splitting land into smaller plots. He planted artichokes, started raising sheep and is investigating which grape varieties are most resistant to frost. This, he hopes, will help prevent disaster from striking everywhere at once.

“I have been doing this for 40 years,” Ayhanlı said. “We’re not giving up.”

Support us

Turkey recap is an independent, reader-supported newsletter that helps people make sense of the fast-paced Turkey news cycle. Contact us: info@turkeyrecap.com.

Subscribe here on Substack (or on Patreon for discount options). Paid subscribers get full access to our recaps, reports, members-only chat and news tracking tools.

Turkey recap is produced by our staff’s non-profit association, KMD. We are an affiliate of the Global Forum for Media Development and aim to create balanced news that strengthens local media by supporting journalists in Turkey.

Diego Cupolo, Editor-in-chief

Emily Rice Johnson, Deputy editor

Günsu Durak, Turkey recap Türkçe editor

Ceren Bayar, Parliament correspondent