Turkey remained a multiparty NATO state in 2025 and 2026, but political confrontation increasingly moved through prosecutors, courts, administrative trustees, media regulation and criminal proceedings. Human Rights Watch reported that the government intensified pressure on the main opposition Republican People’s Party, the CHP, during 2025 after the party’s strong local-election performance in 2024. HRW said the pattern raised serious concerns for political association and electoral competition. Turkish authorities, by contrast, have maintained that prosecutors and judges are acting on criminal allegations rather than political instruction. Human Rights Watch The distinction matters because many of the most important cases remain active judicial proceedings.

The central question is therefore not whether every charge is fabricated, but whether the cumulative structure of prosecutions, detentions, party litigation and administrative intervention is altering the competitive political environment.

On March 19, 2025, Turkish authorities detained Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and scores of other people associated with Istanbul municipal structures. The arrest triggered the largest national protest wave Turkey had seen in years. Amnesty International reported that by March 24 the authorities themselves had acknowledged 1,133 protest-related detentions, while later official figures cited by Amnesty put total detentions between March 19 and March 26 at 1,879 people. Amnesty International

Amnesty described the demonstrations as overwhelmingly peaceful and documented use of tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray and kinetic-impact projectiles. Its later investigation concluded that some incidents of police force may have amounted to torture or other ill-treatment. Amnesty International That wording should be preserved precisely.  The evidence supports serious allegations of unlawful force and possible torture in particular incidents. It does not mean every police action during the demonstrations constituted torture.

The confrontation with the CHP did not end after the March 2025 protest cycle. Human Rights Watch reported in February 2026 that the government had spent the previous year targeting the main opposition while simultaneously pursuing negotiations aimed at ending the PKK conflict. Human Rights Watch Ahead of the July 2026 NATO summit in Ankara, HRW reported another major wave of arrests. On June 23, at least 209 people were detained; prosecutors later said 225 had been arrested, with 178 remanded to pretrial detention and 34 placed under house arrest. Those detained included a journalist, lawyers, an academic, environmental activists and an LGBT activist. Human Rights Watch

This was not simply a continuation of one municipal-corruption case. It demonstrated that politically sensitive policing and national-security prosecutions had widened into multiple sectors of civil society.

Turkey’s Kurdish policy was unusually contradictory during this period. The government simultaneously pursued a process intended to end the armed conflict with the PKK while continuing terrorism prosecutions against Kurdish politicians, journalists and activists. The PKK announced in 2025 that it would move toward disarmament following Abdullah Öcalan’s call. By May 2026 Reuters reported that the process had stalled over sequencing, legal guarantees and mutual distrust. Reuters

In Syria, Ankara continued to insist that the Kurdish-led SDF disarm and integrate into the Syrian state. President Erdoğan said in February 2026 that an agreement between Damascus and the SDF could reduce pressure on Turkey’s domestic peace process. Reuters This reveals the regional character of the Kurdish issue. Turkey’s internal Kurdish policy cannot be separated from developments in northern Syria and northern Iraq.

Turkey’s gender-based violence problem is substantial and measurable, but available figures largely come from civil-society monitoring rather than a single unified government dataset. The country also moved further toward a state-supported traditional-family policy during 2025 and 2026. By September 2026, authorities had launched a major operation against LGBT organizations and activists. Reuters reported that at least 31 people were jailed pending trial and 126 protesters detained, with investigations involving 162 suspects across 15 provinces. Authorities framed the action in terms of family and child protection; European rights bodies criticized the crackdown. Reuters

The political significance goes beyond one community. The episode demonstrates how social-policy language can merge with criminal law, policing and internet blocking.

Turkey deployed forces to the Bashiqa area near Mosul in 2015, saying the mission was intended to train and protect anti-Islamic State forces. Baghdad objected to the deployment and demanded withdrawal, creating a long-running sovereignty dispute. On September 23, 2026, Ankara and Baghdad reached an agreement for Turkey gradually to transfer the Bashiqa-Zelikan military camp to Iraqi authorities. Reuters reported that the phased withdrawal was expected to be completed by the end of 2026. Turkey still maintained other positions in northern Iraq that it described as necessary for national security against the PKK. Reuters

This is concrete evidence of Turkish military reach inside Iraq. It should not be described merely as influence. It was a physical military deployment disputed by Baghdad for years.

Any assessment of Turkey’s conflict with the PKK requires a distinction that is often blurred in political debate: the difference between peaceful political demands, state repression and organized armed violence. No government acquires a legitimate right to suppress peaceful protest merely by invoking national security. Citizens retain rights of political expression, association, assembly and peaceful opposition even when the state is confronting an armed organization. But the reverse is also true.

A political, ethnic, ideological or territorial grievance does not by itself create a legal right to conduct bombings, assassinations or attacks on civilians. International law also requires precision here. In a situation that legally qualifies as an armed conflict, international humanitarian law regulates who may be targeted and which methods of warfare are prohibited. That legal framework is different from suggesting that any political organization may simply invoke oppression and acquire an unrestricted right to use armed force.

The basic analytical standard should therefore remain consistent:

Peaceful political opposition is not terrorism. State repression is not justified by the existence of armed opposition. And the existence of state repression does not automatically legalize violence by non-state actors.

That distinction is relevant not only to Turkey and the PKK but to armed political movements elsewhere. Taliban forces before taking power in Afghanistan, ISIS, the PKK, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Mujahedin-e Khalq and other armed organizations differ greatly in ideology, history, legal status, constituency and operational record. They should not be collapsed into a single category. Each must be assessed through documented conduct, applicable law, civilian harm, targeting practices, command structure and current legal designation.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq provides a useful example of why historical conduct and present legal status must be examined separately. Official U.S. State Department records state that during the 1970s, the MEK was involved in killings of U.S. military personnel and American civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. A 1975 U.S. Embassy cable concerning the assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner records that an anonymous caller attributed the killings to the Mujahedin-e Khalq. (2009-2017.state.gov) Later State Department terrorism reports also documented the organization’s relationship with Saddam Hussein’s government.

After MEK leaders were expelled from France in 1986, U.S. government reporting states that they turned to Saddam Hussein’s regime for basing, financial support and training. Near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad supplied the organization with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in attacks against Iranian forces. U.S. government reporting later stated that before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, essentially all of the organization’s military assistance and most of its financial support came from Saddam Hussein’s government. (2009-2017.state.gov) That historical record is relevant because opposition to the Islamic Republic did not eliminate the political and moral controversy surrounding participation alongside Saddam Hussein’s armed forces during the Iran-Iraq War. It also demonstrates why opposition to an abusive government should not automatically be treated as sufficient justification for military cooperation with a foreign state against forces of one’s own country.

At the same time, accuracy requires noting the change in the organization’s legal status. On September 28, 2012, the U.S. State Department revoked the MEK’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The Department explicitly said the decision did not erase or overlook the organization’s past terrorist acts, including involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s. It also cited the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed terrorist acts for more than a decade and cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf when explaining the delisting decision. (2009-2017.state.gov) This distinction is critical.

Historical conduct should not be erased because a designation changes. But historical designation should not automatically be presented as the organization’s current legal status either.

A serious political report should preserve both facts at the same time.

Turkey’s role in Syria has been even larger. Ankara supported Syrian opposition forces during the civil war and established military influence across areas of northern Syria. After Assad’s fall, Turkey emerged as one of the most influential external states shaping the relationship between Damascus and Kurdish-led forces.

The Turkish government has consistently regarded the SDF and its main Kurdish armed component as closely linked to the PKK and has demanded their disarmament. In February 2026 Erdoğan publicly welcomed the Damascus-SDF integration agreement as beneficial to regional stability and Turkey’s PKK peace process. Reuters

That is a key geopolitical point:

Turkey’s internal Kurdish conflict, northern Syrian policy and northern Iraqi military presence are part of one connected security strategy.

It would be inaccurate to describe Turkey and Iran simply as allies. They compete in Syria, Iraq and over regional influence. But it would also be inaccurate to portray them as consistently hostile.

They maintain trade, diplomatic contact and intelligence-level communication when their interests require it. A particularly important 2026 example came during the U.S.-Iran conflict. Reuters reported that Turkish state media, citing security sources, said Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, MIT, maintained direct communication with Iran, including the IRGC, and played a supporting role in ceasefire diplomacy. A Turkey-based diplomat also confirmed that Ankara had played a supportive mediation role, while Iran publicly acknowledged Turkey’s contribution. Reuters

This is important evidence. It proves direct high-level communication between Turkish intelligence and Iranian security actors. It does not prove that MIT and the IRGC operate as one intelligence organization.

Those are two very different claims.

Turkey in 2025 and 2026 presents a political and strategic model that differs from the states analyzed elsewhere in this series.

Domestically, the most significant evidence concerns:

Opposition prosecutions, mass protest arrests, allegations of unlawful police force, internet throttling, media pressure, judicial conflict and increasingly restrictive social policy.

Technically, OONI provides strong empirical evidence that major social-media and messaging platforms were throttled or blocked during political confrontations in March and September 2025. ooni.org Regionally, Turkey exercises real military and security reach. Its long-running deployment in northern Iraq produced a sovereignty dispute that is only now being partially unwound through the Bashiqa transfer. Reuters

In Syria, Ankara remains one of the most important outside powers shaping Kurdish integration and northern security. With Iran, the relationship combines rivalry with direct intelligence communication when diplomatic circumstances require it. Reuters’ reporting on MIT contacts with the IRGC during the 2026 ceasefire process is direct evidence of that contact, but not evidence that the two intelligence systems are institutionally unified. Reuters With Russia, Turkey combines NATO membership with strategic non-alignment on sanctions and continued economic and diplomatic engagement.

With China, the relationship is primarily commercial and infrastructural rather than equivalent to Russia or Iran. The most accurate conclusion is therefore not that Turkey belongs to one fixed bloc. Turkey’s strength comes from operating across blocs.

That produces leverage. It also produces accountability risks.

For Europe and the United States, the key investigative questions should remain concrete:

Who controls the procurement chain? Who finances the transaction? Which intelligence service directed the operation? Which telecom equipment performed the filtering? Which military unit crossed the border? Which law authorized the detention? Which company moved the sanctioned component?

That standard separates evidence from allegation. And in Turkey’s case, the evidence already demonstrates a state with substantial domestic control capacity and significant cross-border strategic reach.