Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement in Makkah on August 7, capping nearly a year of trilateral talks; the pact's mutual-defence clause means an armed attack on any signatory is treated as an attack on all three; Indian outlets frame it as a potential 'Islamic NATO'; Middle East Eye called it 'first in kind' among the three states; The National (UAE) reported the agreement aims to 'strengthen collective security and promote peace'

Drones struck two Turkish-owned cargo ships, Nadezhda and Yasar, near Russia's Novorossiysk port on the night of August 3, injuring three crew members; the captain of the Nadezhda attributed the attack to Ukraine and said six or seven drones were used; Turkey's Foreign Ministry expressed 'serious concern' and called on both Russia and Ukraine to implement 'concrete measures' for navigational safety, deliberately not naming Ukraine

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's former prime minister and founder of the Gelecek (Future) Party, announced the party's dissolution; the closure will be formalized at a congress on August 22, ending a five-year experiment in opposition centrist politics after failed alliance negotiations and the collapse of the party's 'new center' project

Turkish police detained the CHP opposition mayor of Ankara's Etimesgut district and 51 other suspects on July 30 in a widening corruption investigation; the arrests follow the detention of Istanbul district mayors the previous day and a broader wave of probes that the CHP says are politically motivated to disable the main opposition party ahead of the 2028 elections

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi visited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on July 29, signing five cooperation agreements and discussing a plan for Iraq to supply Turkey with up to one million barrels of oil a day; Turkey's state oil company TPAO has taken a 15% equity stake in the Kirkuk oil field alongside BP, ending the terms of the 1973 Iraq-Turkey pipeline deal; the shift is driven by Turkey's need to reduce dependence on Gulf routes disrupted by the Iran-US war

Ukraine's nine-day shadow-fleet campaign struck 116 Russian vessels; Russia struck civilian cargo ships under Tanzania, Liberia and Marshall Islands flags; the Kerch Strait has been closed since July 10 and EU wheat hit its highest price since February 2025

Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, citing senior defence columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, reported on July 10 that Turkey had already completed the sale of its Russian-made S-400 systems to a Gulf state, most likely the UAE or Qatar; an official announcement was expected the same day; analysts and Greek media said the sale could reopen negotiations for Turkey to obtain US-made F-35 jets, from which Ankara has been excluded since 2019

US President Trump said he would 'consider' allowing Turkey to buy F-35 fighter jets and that the US would lift sanctions on Ankara, a bilateral announcement on the first day of the NATO summit in Turkey; Turkey's President Erdogan claimed Trump had promised five specific jets; if confirmed, it ends Turkey's exclusion from the program since 2019

Ankara Governorate imposed a province-wide assembly ban from July 1-15 covering the NATO summit on July 7-8; Amnesty International reported at least 225 people including academics, lawyers and an LGBTQ activist detained in pre-summit sweeps

The annual Montreux Convention indexation pushed fees from $5.83 to $6.70 per net tonne; a 10,000-tonne vessel now pays roughly $25,000 per passage, compounding post-Iran-war shipping costs as Turkey hosts the NATO summit

Pakistan's PM will press Iran and Turkey on implementing the June 17 Islamabad MoU framework; Islamabad brokered the April talks where the first direct US-Iran engagement occurred and maintains a dedicated contact channel between Washington and Tehran

High Representative Kaja Kallas, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, and Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner visited Turkey on June 29-30 in a coordinated signal of intent; meetings covered accession progress, customs union, migration, and Ukraine ahead of the July 7-8 NATO Ankara summit.

A 35-year dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh that ended in Azerbaijan's 2023 military takeover, now in a stalled US-brokered peace process as of mid-2026.

Turkey's central bank, established 1930, sets Turkish lira policy rates and manages international reserves, with its independence under President Erdogan a persistent market variable.

Cyprus is an EU member partitioned since 1974, with Turkey occupying its north, gas fields in its waters disputed, and UN reunification talks at a 2026 deadline.

A five-layered dispute between two NATO allies over Aegean territorial waters, airspace, the continental shelf, island militarization, and flight-information authority, frozen since 1995 and flaring again in 2026.

The 7,000-km Trans-Caspian freight corridor linking China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia is the only east-west route bypassing both Russia and Iran.

Turkey's president since 2014 who centralized executive power through a 2017 constitutional referendum, and NATO's most consequential yet contested member into 2026.

The Gazprom-operated export pipeline network that once supplied 40% of EU gas, dismantled by Russia's 2022 Ukraine invasion and now banned under EU Regulation EU/261/2026.

Russia's S-400 Triumf, the world's most capable export-grade surface-to-air missile system, has triggered US CAATSA sanctions against buyers China and Turkey and strained NATO cohesion.

Türkiye's national currency, a barometer of the country's recurring battles between heterodox monetary policy and orthodox stabilization, and a global reference point for emerging-market currency risk.

The Bosphorus and Dardanelles, governed by Turkey under the 1936 Montreux Convention, are the only maritime passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

High Representative Kaja Kallas, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, and Internal Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner spent June 29-30 in Ankara meeting Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and two other ministers, the highest-level EU visit since Turkey's accession talks stalled, timed eight days before the Ankara NATO summit

Ankara condemns the strikes as illegal, mourns Khamenei, and offers Trump support to implement a ceasefire, with two-thirds of Turks wanting Turkey to stay out

Erdogan told AK Party MPs that legislation to accelerate the PKK's disbandment is being prepared; the PKK voted to disband in May 2025 after Ocalan's appeal, but the process stalled as Turkey engaged in mediation over the Iran-Israel conflict

An eight-day shutdown of the only remaining transit route foreshadows the EU's full Russian-gas phase-out by 2028

A damning annual report passes 381-107, naming Akın Gürlek over the İmamoğlu case; Ankara calls it 'hostile propaganda'

US, Greece, Cyprus and Israel launch an energy centre at Rice University; Ankara invokes 'guarantor state' powers and warns Israeli strikes now threaten Turkey

Transport ministers in Riyadh signed two memoranda of understanding on June 9 for railway and logistics cooperation along a revived Hejaz Railway route; the feasibility study is due by year-end and completion is targeted in three to four years

Civil Contract takes ~50% on June 7, enough to govern but not the two-thirds for the constitutional referendum Baku and Ankara demand before signing

The fourth regimental set started arriving in June 2026; Delhi sounds out a fresh batch even as Moscow's own war drains stocks

An Istanbul court annuls the CHP's 2023 congress, unseating Özgür Özel and bringing back Kılıçdaroğlu, judicial pressure on Erdoğan's main rival party deepens

Jailed over a year, Erdoğan's strongest rival faces 15-20 years on espionage charges and a separate indictment seeking up to 2,430, and tells the court the nation will decide at the ballot box

A pro-federation TRNC win and Guterres calling 2026 'a critical year' open a window; the two leaders converge on technical points but split on a '5+1' conference and new crossings

A 14-article bill would let Erdogan declare a 200-mile EEZ and deny islands a full continental shelf; Athens calls it illegal under UNCLOS as Dendias warns against 'revisionism'

Akkuyu, Rooppur and two Chinese units are slated to come online, defending a $206bn order book as Western financing and equipment routes close