On March 26, a Turkish-operated oil tanker named Altura was attacked in the Black Sea. Türkiye’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made a statement, saying “A foreign-flagged ship operated by a Turkish company, which had loaded crude oil from Russia, reported an explosion in its engine room after midnight to our emergency call center. We believe that the ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer ASEAN member countries’ energy industries are changing as a result of rising demand, decarbonization requirements, and complex geopolitics. While the region is moving towards cleaner, more inclusive, and more resilient energy systems, the risk diversification challenge—namely addressing structural vulnerabilities and crisis-driven disruptions—acquired an added significance. While pursuit of energy diversification has so far been associated with ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer The ASEAN region boasts some of the finest solar irradiation in the world, offering a geographical advantage in tapping solar power to meet its rapidly growing energy needs. With Southeast Asian economies industrializing, urbanizing, and modernizing, solar power has emerged as the cornerstone of the region’s renewable energy policy. The majority of such countries, led by ...
By Adem Kılıç, Political Scientist When discussing a U.S. ground operation in Hormuz, it would be misleading to view the issue solely through the lens of military capability. For the true determining factors are the constraints imposed by geography, Iran’s war doctrine, and the tension created by the interplay of these two with the U.S.’s global and Israel’s regional positions. ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer As the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) shifts from an infrastructure-centered vision to one of increasingly more inclusive models of world development, sustainability has become a core—if contentious—pillar of legitimacy. Nowhere is this more urgent than with China’s economic relations with ASEAN countries, a strategic border region for BRI deployment. By applying energy calculation—a green accounting ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer Basking in the sunshine, increasing electric demand, and international pressure building to transition to cleaner energy, ASEAN is well-placed to emerge as a solar power leader. On Philippine rooftops, on rolling central Vietnamese plains, solar photovoltaics (PV) is one of the most promising green growth paths forward. But with this dormant potential, solar power remains underexploited ...
By Orçun Göktürk, from Beijing / China More than a week has passed since the renewed attacks by the US and Israel against Iran and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. During this period, Iran targeted almost all US bases in West Asia and carried out successful retaliations against Tel Aviv. The operations launched by Trump with the statement, ...
India… A leading actor in the new world order whose birth pangs are shaking the globe… Therefore, every step it takes in foreign policy is closely followed. I discussed India’s foreign policy aligned with the US, Russia, China, and BRICS, the trade agreement signed between India and the US, and the allegations that India has ended its oil purchases from ...
By Melih Baş Recently, Türkiye has signed energy agreements with US energy giants. These include cooperation on energy exploration in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, as well as partnerships for overseas operations. Lastly on February 5, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources announced that Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) signed a joint oil and gas exploration agreement with Chevron. ...
I don’t know about you, dear readers, but personally, every week I’m amazed by new advances in science and technology that astound my limited understanding of the subject. But beyond that, they allow me to appreciate that this other war—the one that truly matters, the search for new inventions and discoveries to improve humanity’s living conditions and for military development ...
On 24 September 2025, Türkiye and the US concluded a contract for the supply of LNG for a period of 20 years, with a volume of approximately 70 billion cubic meters. The next day, on September 25, a meeting between Erdoğan and Trump took place at the White House. Trump urged Türkiye to abandon purchases of Russian oil, pointing out ...
The main topic on Türkiye’s agenda last week was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s trip to New York to attend the 80th United Nations General Assembly and the meetings he held on that occasion. The most prominent item in Erdoğan’s New York program was his meeting with United States President Donald Trump at the White House and, in that context, the ...