“The main reason Turkey is changing its name is to eliminate its association with the bird,” said Sinan Ulgen, president of the Istanbul-based think tank EDAM. “But the term is also used colloquially to indicate failure.”
International organizations are now required to use the new name, but it won’t happen overnight to the wider public, Ulgen told DailyExpertNews. “It will probably be many years before the wider international audience switches from Turkey to Turkiye.”
This isn’t the first time the nation has tried to change its name, he said. A similar attempt was made in the mid-1980s under Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, but it never gained much traction, he said.
The timing of the name change is “critical” for next year’s election, he said. “The decision on the name change was announced last December, when President Erdogan trailed in all polls and the country navigated one of the worst economic crises of the past 20 years.”
However, Ulgen said the name change was more of a rebranding strategy to boost the country’s international reputation than a pre-election stunt.
“The new name will both distract the domestic public from more concrete, pressing issues and provide President Erdogan with another argument for his advocacy for a stronger, more traditional Turkey,” Siccardi said.
In another populist move in 2020, Erdogan issued a decree to convert Istanbul’s historic Byzantine Hagia Sofia museum into a mosque.
“In the absence of concrete policies to address the country’s economic and political problems, Erdogan is seeking salvation in populist identity politics,” political analyst Seren Korkmaz wrote about the move at the time. “He promotes Turkish nationalism and Islamism and targets opposition figures.”
the summary
White House says Biden’s view of Saudi Arabia as a ‘pariah’ unchanged ahead of potential trip
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that US President Joe Biden’s stance on Saudi Arabia “still stands,” in response to a reporter’s question whether the president views the kingdom as an “outcast.” for his alleged complicity in the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
- Background: As a presidential candidate, Biden has vowed to turn the kingdom into a “pariah” and make it “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s murder. Upon taking office, he abstained from direct contact with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), opting instead to interact with his father, King Salman.
- Why it matters: The reiteration of Biden’s stance comes amid reports the president is planning a trip to the kingdom. MBS, which runs the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom, has rejected US calls to increase oil production to tame inflation. Jean-Pierre said she had no presidential trips to preview. However, the White House took the rare step on Thursday to recognize MBS’s role in extending a ceasefire in Yemen.
Lebanese spy chief plans visit to Syria over missing US reporter
Major General Abbas Ibrahim of Lebanon’s intelligence agency said he will visit Syria to resume negotiations over the release of US journalist Austin Tice, who went missing 10 years ago. The jumpstart in the negotiations comes after a request from US officials.
- Background: Austin Tice was a freelance journalist and former US Marine. He disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012. Ibrahim said that in previous talks with Damascus over Tice, Syria had made demands for the withdrawal of US troops, a resumption of diplomatic relations and the lifting of some US sanctions. Negotiations ended at the end of former President Donald Trump’s term.
- Why it matters: Washington said last year it would not normalize or improve relations with Syria because of what it describes as atrocities it inflicted on its people. Biden, who met Tice’s parents last month, needs a foreign policy victory, especially after his failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to a DailyExpertNews poll, Biden’s overall approval rating was 41% last month.
Israel tells UN nuclear watchdog it will take action against Iran if diplomacy fails
Israel will take action to block Iran’s nuclear program if diplomacy fails, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Raphael Grossi on Friday. Prime Minister Bennett made it clear that while Israel prefers diplomacy to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons, it reserves the right to self-defense and take action against Iran to block its nuclear program should the international community fail within the relevant time frame,” said a statement from Bennett’s office.
- Background: Iran has increased its stockpile of enriched uranium and has yet to provide answers to unexplained nuclear activities at three undeclared sites, according to two May 30 IAEA reports obtained by DailyExpertNews. The only additional statement Iran made at any of the suspected nuclear sites was “the possibility of sabotage by a third party to contaminate the area. However, Iran has not provided any evidence to support this statement,” the report said.
- Why it matters: Grossi’s quick visit to Tel Aviv comes ahead of the IAEA’s board of governors meeting in Vienna on Monday, where the US, UK, France and Germany will seek a resolution addressing the need for Iran to fully cooperate. working with the UN nuclear watchdog. The draft resolution will be in response to two reports obtained by DailyExpertNews and provided to IAEA member states on May 30, stating that Iran has not yet provided answers for unexplained nuclear activities at three undeclared sites.
Around the region
When Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi fled her country in 2006 because of a leaked tape, she thought her career was over. But on Saturday, she became the first Iranian to win the best actress prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Ebrahimi rose to fame in her native Iran, but the pinnacle of her career in Cannes came when she was in exile, for a film shot in Jordan.
Directed by Iranian-born Ali Abbasi, “Holy Spider” is based on the true story of a serial killer in the holy city of Mashad, Iran. It follows a journalist, Rahimi, as she reports on the hunt for a construction worker suspected of murdering 16 sex workers.
Winning the award “was like a dream,” she told DailyExpertNews’s Becky Anderson on Thursday.
The film touches on the subject of patriarchy, which Rahimi hopes will “send a message of courage, a message of hope, not just to women, but to men and women around the world.”
The win has pushed her back into the limelight in Iran and has sparked a backlash. The actress told DailyExpertNews that she has received about 200 threats. “The problem is, they haven’t even watched this movie, and they’re only judging this movie based on a trailer,” she said, attributing the reaction to Iran’s lack of freedom of expression.
Ebrahimi fled Iran to France in 2006 after a “private video” of her was leaked, fearing arrest and flogging by judicial authorities, she said. She had to start her career over ‘in a country where I knew no one’.
“I had to run from my country, from my home. I left my friends and family behind,” she told DailyExpertNews. But she refused to let the scandal ruin her career. “From the very day after that scandal happened to me, all I talked about was cinema, I just thought I’m alive and I have to work. And you know, I’ll live because I have cinema, because I love my job, because I love life.”
Ebrahimi said her next film will be shot in Australia. She has no plans to return to her homeland.
By Mohammed Abdelbary
what is trending
Kuwait: #American_Embassy
A tweet on the occasion of Pride Month by the US Embassy in Kuwait has sparked a firestorm on social media, prompting the Gulf state to summon a US diplomat.
“All people should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, regardless of who they are or who they love,” the embassy tweeted Thursday in English and Arabic with a picture of a pride flag. “@POTUS is an advocate for the human rights of #LGBTQI individuals. #Pride2022 #YouAreIncluded,” it said, referring to the US president.
The US embassies in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE posted similar tweets.
The Kuwaiti embassy summoned the US chargé d’affaires to the back of the embassy’s “pro-gay rights post” late Thursday, the state-run Kuwait News Agency reported. It called on the embassy to “respect the country’s laws and regulations in force in the state of Kuwait and the obligation not to publish such tweets”.
Homosexuality is illegal in Kuwait and same-sex sexual activity is punishable under the country’s penal code.
Kuwaiti lawmaker Abdul Aziz Al Saqobi accused the embassy of “trying to impose an agenda contrary to the country’s common sense and values”.
Rights activist Anwar Al Rasheed said he was shocked not by the embassy’s tweet but by the protest of the Kuwaiti government, which he said “believes to defend virtue in the name of God”.
