Turkey is entering the autumn of 2026 under the pressure of several crises unfolding simultaneously: economic fragility, political uncertainty, institutional tensions, and a renewed struggle over the country’s strategic orientation.
At first glance, these developments may appear unrelated. Yet viewed together, they point toward a larger transformation.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to be attempting something extraordinarily difficult: moving Turkey closer again to the Western and NATO security architecture without dismantling the strategic relationships Ankara has built with Russia and China over the past fifteen years.
At the same time, another process may be unfolding inside Turkey itself.
The reopening of old and politically sensitive cases — including those involving Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu and former intelligence officer Kaşif Kozinoğlu — raises questions about whether the balance of power within the Turkish state is also being reconsidered.
There is not yet sufficient public evidence to conclude that these investigations represent a systematic campaign against Turkey’s so-called Eurasianist networks. But their timing, the figures emerging in the investigations, and Turkey’s changing geopolitical environment make the possibility of an internal realignment increasingly difficult to ignore.
From the West Toward Eurasia
During the second decade of Erdoğan’s rule, Turkey’s relationship with the West underwent a profound transformation.
Turkey remained a NATO member, but Ankara increasingly pursued a more autonomous and multidirectional foreign policy. Relations with Russia deepened. Economic ties with China expanded. At home, nationalist, security-oriented and broadly Eurasianist circles gained greater influence, while many of the liberal and pro-European actors associated with the AKP’s first decade lost political relevance.
Perhaps the most visible symbol of this shift was Turkey’s decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 air-defense system.
The decision intensified the crisis of confidence between Ankara and Washington and ultimately contributed to Turkey’s removal from the F-35 fighter program.
Yet this period exposed a fundamental contradiction in Turkey’s geopolitical transformation:
While Turkey was moving eastward in security and foreign policy, its economic structure remained deeply tied to the West.
The European Union continued to be Turkey’s most important economic partner. In 2025, trade in goods between Turkey and the EU reached roughly €218 billion. Trade with China grew to approximately $53 billion, but with a substantial deficit on the Turkish side. Russia, meanwhile, became particularly important because of Turkey’s energy dependence.
Turkey therefore does not face a simple choice between “East” and “West.”
Over the past fifteen years, Ankara has developed overlapping relationships of dependence and mutual interest with Europe, Russia and China. None can be dismantled overnight.
Is Erdoğan Turning Back to the West?
Beginning in the 2020s, another adjustment became visible.
Erdoğan moved to repair damaged relations with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Ankara adopted a more conciliatory tone toward international investors and began taking steps that emphasized Turkey’s importance within NATO.
The defense industry has become one of the clearest indicators of this recalibration.
Following the S-400 crisis, Turkey has sought ways to restore access to the F-35 program while simultaneously expanding defense cooperation with European partners, including through the multibillion-pound Eurofighter Typhoon agreement with Britain.
These are not merely weapons transactions.
They also carry political meaning about the security architecture in which Turkey wants to position itself.
But Ankara faces a structural problem.
Erdoğan cannot simply tell Moscow that the partnership is over, tell Beijing that relations are being fundamentally reset, and erase fifteen years of strategic engagement. Nor can the government instantly dismantle relationships with political, military and bureaucratic circles that became influential during Turkey’s Eurasian turn.
Foreign-policy realignments inevitably affect domestic power structures.
Erdoğan and the Eurasianists: From Cooperation to Tension?
It would be misleading to describe the relationship between Erdoğan and Turkey’s Eurasianist circles as a formally documented alliance with clearly defined boundaries.
Nevertheless, particularly after the corruption investigations of December 17–25, 2013, a visible convergence emerged between the Erdoğan government and several nationalist, security-oriented and Eurasianist groups.
The release in 2014 of defendants associated with the Ergenekon trials became one of the defining developments of this new political environment. Doğu Perinçek and his political network also became considerably more visible.
The important point is not whether these actors constituted a single unified bloc.
Rather, the security and political architecture surrounding Erdoğan changed.
Actors marginalized during the AKP’s earlier period gained influence as other groups were pushed out.
That arrangement may have been politically useful to Erdoğan for years. But political alliances rarely remain static.
Yesterday’s ally can become tomorrow’s leverage.
And that possibility becomes particularly important when a government attempts another strategic realignment.
Why the Kaşif Kozinoğlu Case Matters
The reopening of the Kaşif Kozinoğlu case is therefore significant.
Kozinoğlu, a former Turkish intelligence officer, died in Silivri Prison in 2011. Fifteen years later, the investigation has returned to the political agenda, bringing renewed attention to Hasan Atilla Uğur, one of the prominent figures associated with the Ergenekon case.
Footage published by the pro-government newspaper Sabah, together with discussion of an intelligence report allegedly involving officers connected to Russia and China, has added another layer of political controversy.
The legal significance of these developments remains uncertain.
Their political significance, however, is potentially much broader.
When security files that appeared closed for approximately fifteen years suddenly return to the agenda, Turkey is not merely reopening criminal investigations. It is also reopening the archives of its recent internal power struggles.
The Kozinoğlu case therefore represents more than a disputed death investigation.
It is potentially a new doorway into the history of Turkey’s security state.
The Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu Case: A Second Door Opens
The renewed investigation into the death of nationalist politician Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu further complicates the picture.
In 2026, detention and arrest orders were issued against numerous individuals as part of the investigation.
Official narratives have emphasized alleged links to the Gülen movement. Yet another aspect deserves attention: several apparently separate cases from Turkey’s recent political history are returning to the agenda at roughly the same time.
Behind them are familiar themes — Ergenekon, intelligence agencies, military bureaucracy and rival power centers within the state.
This does not prove that the investigations are coordinated parts of a single political strategy.
But it does mean that Turkey is once again confronting the unresolved legacy of the power struggles that shaped the state over the past two decades.
Are the Eurasianists the Real Target?
The emerging investigations can therefore be interpreted not only as attempts to resolve historical cases but also as potential indicators that the boundaries of power within the state are being renegotiated.
The fundamental question is:
Who will shape Turkey’s security and intelligence architecture in the next political era?
Nationalist, security-oriented and Eurasianist circles accumulated significant influence during the past fifteen years. Their future position becomes especially important if Ankara seeks deeper reintegration with NATO and Western security structures.
That could produce new tensions within the Turkish state.
But one distinction is essential.
It would be inaccurate to portray every Turkish Eurasianist as an extension of Moscow or Beijing. Eurasianism in Turkey has its own nationalist and historical roots. Its advocates may cooperate with Russia or China when interests converge, but that does not automatically make them instruments of either country.
The emerging struggle should therefore not be reduced to “Turkey versus Russia.”
It may instead be a struggle over who determines Turkey’s strategic direction.
Erdoğan’s Most Vulnerable Front: The Economy
Above all these geopolitical calculations stands a harder reality: economics.
Turkey’s renewed engagement with the West cannot be understood solely in ideological terms. Ankara needs access to European markets, Western capital, technology and international investor confidence.
According to the official economic narrative, tighter monetary policy introduced after 2023 has begun reducing inflation. IMF figures indicate that inflation declined from 49.4 percent at the end of 2024 to 30.9 percent at the end of 2025.
Yet Turkey continues to struggle with high inflation, high interest rates, external financing requirements and persistent questions about investor confidence.
This is why the recent investment-fund crisis should not be treated merely as another financial scandal.
The deeper issue is institutional credibility.
Yeniden Refah Party leader Fatih Erbakan has alleged losses exceeding $60 billion. Reuters-reported figures, meanwhile, indicated that the crisis involved more than 100 funds holding approximately $18–20 billion in assets and affected roughly half a million investors.
Whatever the final numbers prove to be, the political question extends beyond financial losses.
It concerns whether markets and citizens continue to trust the institutions responsible for regulating and supervising the financial system.
Three Crises Are Converging
Turkey is therefore confronting three overlapping crises.
The first is geopolitical: Ankara must redefine its position among the West, Russia and China.
The second concerns the state itself: power centers formed during the past two decades may be undergoing another reorganization.
The third is economic: inflation, financing requirements, market transparency and investor confidence remain persistent vulnerabilities.
These crises reinforce one another.
Closer relations with the West could improve Turkey’s access to capital and technology but could also generate friction with domestic actors who benefited from the previous geopolitical configuration.
Maintaining strong relations with Russia and China gives Ankara strategic room for maneuver but complicates deeper integration with Western financial and security structures.
Reopening old investigations may strengthen political control, but it can also activate actors who possess knowledge accumulated during previous alliances.
Old Allies, New Confrontations
One lesson from Turkey’s past twenty years is that alliances inside the state are rarely permanent.
Groups that cooperated in one period later became enemies. Actors once described as threats subsequently became partners, only to be treated as threats again.
For that reason, Turkey’s so-called “deep state” may be better understood not as a single permanent organization but as a changing network of power.
Military officers, intelligence officials, politicians, business interests and ideological groups have repeatedly formed and dissolved alliances depending on the political circumstances.
What Turkey may be witnessing today is another reconfiguration of that network.
The Most Important Question: Who Controls the Files?
This leads to perhaps the most consequential question.
If some of the information contained in the investigations being reopened today has existed inside state institutions for years, why is it emerging now?
The question matters because once historical intelligence and criminal files become relevant to contemporary political struggles, the boundary between judicial investigation and political power becomes increasingly important.
The Kozinoğlu and Yazıcıoğlu cases therefore cannot be understood solely by asking:
Who did it?
Another question must also be asked:
Are these investigations part of Turkey’s attempt to confront its past, or are they becoming instruments in the construction of its future balance of power?
The answer is not yet clear.
But the timing of the investigations, the figures appearing in them and Turkey’s changing foreign-policy orientation mean that the second possibility deserves serious scrutiny.
Turkey Is Not Simply Changing Sides
What Turkey is experiencing cannot adequately be described as a simple “return to the West.”
A more accurate description is this:
Ankara is attempting to reintegrate with Western security and economic structures without abandoning the strategic relationships it has built with Russia and China.
Its effort to regain access to the F-35 program, the Eurofighter agreement, expanding European defense cooperation and renewed outreach to Western capital can all be understood within this broader framework.
But such a shift carries domestic consequences.
Turkey’s energy dependence on Russia, expanding commercial ties with China and the influence accumulated by Eurasianist circles inside the state cannot simply disappear.
Ankara’s challenge is therefore not only foreign policy.
It must determine how alliances constructed during one geopolitical era can coexist with the strategic requirements of another.
Turkey’s Real Struggle Is Over Direction
Turkey’s crisis in 2026 cannot be understood solely as Erdoğan’s struggle against political opponents.
Something deeper may be occurring.
Who will determine Turkey’s strategic direction for the next decade?
Turkey’s position inside NATO, relations with Russia, economic connections with China, integration with Europe, energy dependence, defense industry and internal balance of power are all being renegotiated simultaneously.
Seen separately, the Yazıcıoğlu investigation, the Kozinoğlu case, renewed Ergenekon debates, Eurasianist networks, the investment-fund crisis and Turkey’s economic difficulties appear to be unrelated stories.
Seen together, they raise a much larger question:
Can Erdoğan — and Turkey itself — reconstruct the multilayered power architecture built over the past twenty years without triggering conflict between the alliances of the past and the strategic priorities of the future?
Because the question is no longer simply who remains in power.
It is what kind of Turkey emerges from the transformation.
Ankara’s rapprochement with the West does not necessarily mean abandoning Moscow or Beijing. Likewise, maintaining relations with Russia and China does not necessarily mean breaking with the West.
Turkey’s strategic objective appears to be preserving the widest possible room for maneuver between these competing centers of power.
As the late Turkish intelligence analyst Mahir Kaynak often emphasized, Turkey’s strategic strength ultimately depends on its ability to maintain such a balance.
But that room for maneuver cannot be sustained through foreign policy alone.
If economic confidence cannot be restored, geopolitical maneuvering becomes increasingly expensive. If struggles within the state cannot be contained, old investigations can become new political crises. And if alliances built in previous periods cannot be managed, instruments that once strengthened political power can eventually be turned against it.
Turkey’s greatest challenge, therefore, may not be choosing an axis.
It may be preserving the institutional and economic capacity to move between competing axes without losing control of the state itself.
The investigations reopening in Ankara, the turbulence in financial markets and the reconstruction of defense relations with the West may ultimately be different parts of the same story:
Turkey is not only recalibrating its foreign policy. It may also be reorganizing the political architecture of the past twenty years — and the ultimate cost of that transformation will be borne not only by political actors, but by Turkey’s economy and society.
