Ahmet Davutoglu

There is a popular Turkish saying: "The fire burns where it falls." It basically means that nobody other than the victim can truly understand the pain suffered.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Ankara on Thursday. This was her first visit after the July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt. Like all other visitors, she was shown the section of the Turkish Parliament that was bombed by Turkey's own fighter jets on that dreadful night. In the past, foreign dignitaries would visit Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Mausoleum when they visited Ankara.

The infiltration of Gülenists into the Foreign Ministry accelerated after a drastic change in the ministry's personnel policy between 2009 and 2013 under the rule of former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, daily Hürriyet reported over the weekend. 

Meanwhile, the ministry also said it had dismissed 30 percent of its staff due to links to the group. 

The Turkish pilot who shot down a Russian jet in November 2015 was not linked to the Fethullah Gülen network, former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, citing information he received from the country's top soldier.

What was the cost of Turkey realizing its acute wrong Syria policy? I could start counting the costs by placing right at the top Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey's former prime minister. Davutoğlu's continued premiership would have made it impossible for Turkey to modify its Sunni-obsessed perspective by crippling its historical, cultural and of course political clout.

Who killed Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Ankara? Officially, the assassin is a young anti-riot police officer. According to the government narrative, he must be a pawn of the Gülenist terrorists who wanted to sabotage Turkey's relations with Russia - just like the fighter jet pilots who shot down a Russian Su-24 on Nov. 24, 2015. This narrative is highly problematic.

As the year is coming to a close, an interesting analysis recently published on the Politico website gives a vivid picture of the EU's strategic intention for further enlargement. That is a target that several countries, including Turkey, still aim to reach. 

On Nov. 24, 2015, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets won the title of shooting down, from NATO's side, the first ever Soviet-Russian military warplane since the end of World War II, saying it violated Turkish airspace along the country's border with Syria. The Russian pilot of the fighter jet was killed.

With the latest news of human tragedies coming from Aleppo, one phase of the Syrian civil war is about to be closed.

Turkey's new ambassador to Israel, Mustafa Kemal Ökem, has officially been appointed to mission after his name appeared in the government's Official Gazette on Dec. 7. 

The foreign ministry had officially announced Ökem's appointment to the post on Nov. 30.