The Daily Briefing for the Conscientious Leader, through an Istanbul lens
Feet in the world. Heart in Istanbul.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2026 · ISSUE NO. 9 · GEOPOLITICS · TURKEY · TECH · ENERGY · PROPERTY · TRAVEL · BY MEHMET ISTANBULLU
Today: Regional and European foreign ministers meet in Istanbul | Brent $113.17, a five-month high | Turkey’s policy rate 36% | PHP fixes out
LEAD · GEOPOLITICS
Turkey Brings Riyadh, Cairo, Islamabad and Europe’s Big Three to One Table
The first meeting of the R-4 and the E-3 comes as Iran claims hits on seven tankers, the Houthis strike Saudi Arabia and Brent tops $113.
BY MEHMET ISTANBULLU · ABOUT 7 MINUTES
WHAT HAPPENED
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, hosts his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan in Istanbul on Friday, together with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany. It is the first meeting between the four-country group formed in March to work on regional security and on mediation between Washington and Tehran, known as the R-4, and the European trio known as the E-3, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters. [1] Pakistan’s Dawn reported the same line-up. [2]
The agenda is crowded: the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Strait of Hormuz, Yemen, the war in Ukraine and how the region and Europe can work together. Fidan is expected to argue for a diplomatic end to the war between the United States and Iran, for free navigation through Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb, for Saudi Arabia’s security under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, and for keeping the Ukraine war out of the Black Sea, the source said. [1]
WHY IT MATTERS
The ministers meet after the worst two days at sea and in the Gulf in months. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that seven tankers had been hit in the Strait of Hormuz, four set on fire while transferring oil and three by mines. That would be the heaviest single-day toll since the war began on Feb. 28, but none of it has been independently confirmed. Washington disputes the account: U.S. Central Command says 95% of vessels are getting through and that the shipping lanes have been cleared of mines. The Guards also threatened U.S. bases in the region. [3]
On Wednesday, Houthi attacks reached Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Two people were killed and eight injured at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, which resumed operations on Thursday, and debris from an intercepted drone killed two at the Shaybah oil field, where output was not affected. Attacks on Saudi airports have killed 22 people this month, according to an AFP tally. [4]
Markets noticed. Brent crude rose about 4% on Thursday to settle at $113.17 a barrel, its highest close since May 4. [5][6]
The format is the news. The R-4 puts in one room a NATO member with the alliance’s second-largest army, the world’s largest oil exporter, the country that runs the Suez Canal and a nuclear-armed South Asian power. The E-3 are the European capitals that negotiated with Iran for two decades. Between them they touch most of the sea lanes that matter to this war, from Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb to Suez and the Turkish Straits, through which Europe’s energy and Asia’s goods move. A standing channel between the two groups would give Europe a seat in Gulf security that it has not had since the war began, and give the region a European partner that is not Washington.
Ankara is also tying itself more formally to Gulf security. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was sent to the Turkish parliament for approval on Tuesday, sources told Arab News. [7]
And the week has shown how far Turkey’s pull now reaches. In Ankara on Thursday, Mark Carney, on the first bilateral visit by a Canadian prime minister, signed a strategic partnership with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan built on four pillars: trade and investment, defense and security, energy, and ties between people. Free-trade talks start next month, Canada’s export agency and Türk Eximbank are to sign an agreement on projects in third countries, and weekly flights rise from 12 to 21. “Now, we are starting a new era between Turkey and Canada,” Erdoğan said. [8][9] Carney meets business leaders in Istanbul on Friday; his profile is on The Other Page.
PROFILE: THE HOST
Hakan Fidan has been foreign minister since June 2023. Before that he ran the National Intelligence Organization, MİT, from 2010. Born in Ankara on July 17, 1968, he served 15 years as a non-commissioned officer in the army, part of it with NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in Germany. He studied management and political science at the University of Maryland and earned a doctorate at Bilkent University in Ankara, with a thesis on diplomacy in the information age and the verification of treaties. From 2003 to 2007 he ran TİKA, Turkey’s development and cooperation agency. [10]
The pattern of his career is quiet channels first and a public format later. Friday’s meeting is the public format: the test is whether it produces a second date.
BEST MOVES
Re-check the route, not just the price. If your crude, containers or components pass Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandeb, ask your shipper and insurer today what a switch to the Suez and Mediterranean route, or to land corridors through Turkey and Saudi Arabia, would cost and how quickly it could be done.
Budget at the price on the screen. Plan next quarter’s energy and freight costs at Thursday’s $113 Brent, with a second case above $130 if the tanker reports are confirmed. A plan built on $90 is already out of date.
Check travel to Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Dammam’s airport is open again, but confirm staff flights with the airline the day before and keep a land route to Bahrain or Riyadh in the plan.
Map the Canada and Turkey opening early. If you work in energy, critical minerals, nuclear or infrastructure, list the third-country projects the two governments want to pursue together; partners for the first ones are usually chosen before the agreements are public.
WHAT TO WATCH
Whether the Istanbul meeting ends with a joint statement and a date for a second round, which would make R-4 and E-3 a standing format.
Independent confirmation, from ship trackers or insurers, of the tankers the Revolutionary Guards say were hit.
The Turkish parliament’s vote on the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement.
Whether Brent holds above $110 into next week, and what OPEC members with spare capacity outside the Gulf say about supply.
IN BRIEF
TURKEY
Turkey’s Central Bank Cuts for the First Time Since January
The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye cut its one-week repo rate by 100 basis points to 36% on Thursday, its first cut since January, after five holds. The overnight lending rate falls to 39% and the borrowing rate to 34.5%. The bank said the size and timing of further steps would be “decided prudently on a meeting-by-meeting basis.” [11][12]
BBVA Research reads it as a cautious step: it expects a hold at 36% until disinflation is clearer, and a further 100-point cut in December only if inflation ends the year below 30%. [13]
The move: If you sign contracts or set prices in lira, keep review clauses short, quarterly rather than yearly. In a slow easing cycle, prices, wages and the exchange rate may move at different speeds.
TECH
A Decade-Old Flaw in PHP Takes Government Websites Offline
Two critical flaws in PHP, the language behind about 70% of websites, including those built on WordPress, Drupal and Magento, let an attacker run code on a server without logging in. PHP issued fixes on Wednesday in versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35; older versions get source patches or nothing. Amazon saw an attempt to exploit the flaws on Oct. 17, four days before they were disclosed. [15]
Government sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany and Britain were taken down while they were patched, and the U.S. National Security Agency told organizations that cannot patch to go offline. [14]
The move: Ask whoever runs your website, booking system or intranet one question today: which PHP version is it on? If it is not one of the four fixed versions, take it offline until it is.
ENERGY
Kyrgyzstan Pauses New Gas Connections to Rebuild Its Supply
Kyrgyzstan will connect no new residential areas to gas in 2027 and 2028, Arzymat Aldayarov, deputy director general of Gazprom Kyrgyzstan, said. All investment in those two years goes to rebuilding the Malovodnoye station, raising its capacity from 10,000 to 80,000 cubic meters an hour, ahead of a trunk pipeline from Kazakhstan due in 2028. Gas reaches 44% of the country, about 462,000 consumers using 570 million cubic meters a year. [16]
Separately, Energy Minister Altynbek Rysbekov said the president had allocated $300 million to the energy sector. [17]
The move: If you are planning housing, hotels or plants in a new district of Kyrgyzstan, design for electric heating or your own supply until at least 2029, and ask the local utility in writing when your district is due to be connected.
If You Have Time · Five shorter reads for the evening, the weekend or the flight.
PROFILE
Canada’s Prime Minister Brings a Central Banker’s Patience to Ankara
Mark Carney ran two central banks before he ran a country. His Turkey deal reads like it: a long horizon, small first steps.
Mark Carney at the EU-Canada summit in Brussels, June 23, 2025. Photo: © European Union, 2025 (Dati Bendo, European Commission Audiovisual Service), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and toned (license)
Mark Carney has been Canada’s prime minister since March 2025. Born in 1965 in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, he studied economics at Harvard and Oxford and spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before joining the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor in 2003. He was its governor from 2008 to 2013, through the financial crisis, and then governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, the first person from outside Britain to hold the job. Later he led environmental and impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management. [18]
His visit to Ankara this week was the first bilateral visit by a Canadian prime minister. The partnership he signed comes with a three-year action plan and free-trade talks that open in Ankara next month. Carney said Canada can help Turkey’s growing economy secure its energy with natural gas, civilian nuclear technology and critical minerals. Trade is about $3 billion a year; the two sides aim for $5 billion, then $10 billion. “We’ve planted the seeds of something new,” Carney said. [8][9]
The move: If your business sits between North America and Turkey, take the trade targets seriously but read the timetable: the first concrete steps are the flights and the free-trade talks, and those are where early partners will be found.
TECH
Oppo Puts Three 200-Megapixel Cameras on One Phone
Oppo’s Find X10 Pro Max is the first phone with three 200-megapixel rear cameras: main, ultrawide and periscope telephoto, tuned with Hasselblad. By default it shoots 26-megapixel images, merging pixels for cleaner results. The main sensor is 1/1.3 inches with an f/1.5 lens, and Oppo claims 17 stops of dynamic range. [19][20]
It runs on MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro, with a 144Hz OLED screen and a 7,150mAh battery in Europe, 8,000mAh elsewhere. It costs from £1,499 or €1,799, about $2,000, and will not be sold in the United States. [19]
The move: If the phone is your main camera on trips, wait for the independent low-light and zoom tests; at this price, the camera is the whole case for buying it.
TURKEY
A Tie, a Song and a Fighter Jet Take Over Turkish Feeds
On Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed his party’s parliamentary group wearing a tie patterned with the silhouette of KAAN, Turkey’s fifth-generation fighter, built by Turkish Aerospace (TUSAŞ). Indonesia has ordered 48 of the jets. [22]
On Thursday the company answered on its social media accounts with archive footage of the jet’s first roll-out from the hangar and its flights, set to the late singer Ferdi Tayfur’s “Ben de Özledim” (“I Missed It Too”), with the caption “Ben de özledim ben de…”. Within hours it had hundreds of thousands of likes and interactions, Yeniçağ reported, raising interest ahead of the jet’s next test flights. [21]
The move: If you market to Turkish audiences, note the register that worked: national pride, a classic song everyone knows, and no sales pitch at all.
PROPERTY
Britain’s Budget Could Decide Whether Empty Ex-Rentals Sell
The chancellor presents the Budget on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and lawyers, agents and landlord groups are pressing for stamp-duty changes. Lisa Wilson, a partner at the law firm Spencer West, wants lower rates on additional properties to clear homes left empty after landlords rushed to sell before no-fault evictions ended in May. Zoopla found 87% of London flats on the market still unsold after six months, against 80.5% across England. [23]
Rightmove’s October index shows asking prices 0.1% lower than a year ago and sales agreed down 8%. [24]
The move: If you plan to sell a British flat in the next year, wait for the Budget text before you set a price, then price against the empty flats near you, not last year’s sales.
TRAVEL
NetJets Opens Its Own Terminal in Las Vegas
NetJets and Signature Aviation have opened a private campus of more than 300,000 square feet at Las Vegas, with a 17,069-square-foot terminal for NetJets owners, two hangars, ramp space for about 25 aircraft and a round-the-clock service hub. NetJets flights to Las Vegas grew nearly 45% from 2022 to almost 8,000 by the end of 2025, and demand this year is up nearly 30%. [25][26]
It is the first site the two companies have built together from scratch, alongside new and expanded facilities in Dallas, Palm Beach and Washington. “We invest where our Owners want to be,” said Patrick Gallagher, president of NetJets Aviation. [25]
The move: If you fly privately to Las Vegas, ask your operator which terminal you will use; arrival time at a dedicated terminal is measured in minutes, not queues.
THE OTHER PAGE IN NUMBERS
21
weekly flights between Canada and Turkey, up from 12 [8]
3 × 200MP
rear cameras on Oppo’s new phone [19]
87%
of London flats listed still unsold after six months, in Zoopla’s study [23]
17,069 sq ft
NetJets’ new private terminal in Las Vegas [25]
The Best of Elsewhere · What is worth your ears and eyes this week, and why.
LISTEN
Inside Russia’s Plan for Ukraine’s Winter
The Daily (The New York Times) · Sun., Oct. 19 · 29 min
Constant Méheut explains why Moscow appears confident it can bomb Ukraine into submission, as relentless strikes on Kyiv cut power to more than a million people and Washington and Kyiv fall out. [27] Useful context on a day when Turkey asks Europe and the region to keep that war out of the Black Sea.
LISTEN
Three Students, One Service, $15,000 a Month
The Koerner Office (Chris Koerner) · Thu., Oct. 16 · 29 min
Three founders in their early twenties explain how they sell AI assessments, found their first clients by texting people they already knew, and landed a $15,000-a-month client, a $30 million construction company, within months. [28] Worth it for owners of older businesses wondering what such help should cost, and what it should deliver.
READ
Oil Wars: The Struggle for Control that has Shaped the Modern World
Guy Laron · Yale University Press · Oct. 20, 2026 · 528 pages
A history of how oil and gas have been used as weapons for 150 years, through production sites, pipelines, refineries and chokepoints, from the First World War to today. Helen Thompson, author of Disorder, calls it “full of insight and riveting historical detail.” [29][30] The long view behind this week’s Hormuz headlines.
READ
Bringing Order to Anarchy: Governing the World to Come
Charles A. Kupchan · Yale University Press · Oct. 20, 2026 · 328 pages
Kupchan, a Georgetown professor, proposes a global system of “concerts”: high-level steering groups that cut across ideological dividing lines, so that powers that disagree can still manage shared problems. [31][32] Read it with Friday’s Istanbul meeting in mind; it is close to what he describes.
Every pick links to the original. Our note says why it is worth your time; the work is theirs.
SOURCES: FRONT PAGE 1–17 · THE OTHER PAGE 18–26 · YET ANOTHER PAGE 27–32 (ACCESSED OCT. 23, 2026)
Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Natural Earth (public domain) · Map: The Other Post
The Other Post: The Daily Briefing for the Conscientious Leader, through an Istanbul lens is independent analysis for decision-makers. Nothing here is investment, legal or medical advice. Issue No. 9 · © 2026 Mehmet Istanbullu
ISSUE NO. 9 · EDITED BY MEHMET ISTANBULLU
The Daily Briefing for the Conscientious Leader, through an Istanbul lens
Clear sight. Best moves. More options. — For leaders in business, government and society across MENA
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2026 · REPORTED THROUGH THURSDAY, OCT. 22 · GEOPOLITICS · TURKEY · TECH · ENERGY · PROPERTY · TRAVEL
Feet in the world. Heart in Istanbul.