Enes Kilic

This image shows a group of children standing in front of an Anatolian Cultural Center in Azaz, Syria. The building has been standing since 1912. Ottoman stone, Aleppo sun, 44 years of Baathist youth programming baked into its walls. When the Bulbulzade Foundation opened it as a cultural center earlier in 2026, they didn't gut it—they restored it. Around 1,000 people show up regularly. Another 10,000, the foundation’s chairperson Turgay Aldemir tells Türkiye Today, are effectively on a waiting list.

The image is a stylized photograph of an AI chip, featuring laser-etched designs of the American and Turkish flags. The Atlantic Council recently brought together the United States' leading tech policy minds alongside the senators who help turn those minds into law. Then it published the framework as a roadmap for how America intends to lead the world on artificial intelligence.

Medieval Arab sailors had a talent for naming things honestly. When they looked at the narrow, 30-kilometer passage connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, they chose a warning, naming it Bab el-Mandab, the Gate of Tears. Centuries of treacherous currents, sudden winds, and pirates who took no prisoners had made the math simple enough: ships went in, sailors sometimes didn't come out, and the name stuck. It still fits. The tears today are economic rather than personal, but the logic is the same.