Kadri Gürsel is a commentator and columnist for Istanbul-based digital news platform Medyascope. He previously had a column at Turkish dailies Milliyet and Cumhuriyet and worked as a commentator for various TV channels including CNNTurk and HalkTV. His main focuses are Turkish domestic and foreign policy, international affairs, press freedom, Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam and its national and regional impacts. Before becoming full-time columnist in the fall of 2008, he was in charge of the foreign news desk of Milliyet as editor. Beginning from 1999, he fulfilled this task for 9 years. Kadri also worked for the Agence France-Presse (AFP) for nearly five years between 1993 and 1997 as an İstanbul-based reporter.

In October 2016 he was detained and jailed for 11 months in the operation against Cumhuriyet daily for which he was writing columns and working as an editorial adviser. Kadri contextualizes this ordeal in the decay of democracy and freedom of the press in Turkey in his book titled Ben de Sizin İçin Üzgünüm, published in November 2018.

While in AFP, he was kidnapped by the PKK in the mountainous south-east of Turkey in 1995. In his book entitled Dağdakiler (Those of the Mountains) published in 1996, he narrated his 26 days of captivity in the hands of the PKK. Kadri is also the author of a book titled Turquie Annéee Zéro published in 2016 in France. He has been in journalism since 1986. He worked for several daily newspapers and weekly news magazines before joining AFP.

Kadri is former board member of Vienna based International Press Institute.

Read More