Editorial Principles: How Diplomatic Dossier Handles Sources, Positions and Corrections

Why It Matters

Diplomatic Dossier is a document-based publication that openly presents Türkiye's official perspective and legal positions next to the documentary record. This page sets out the rules that govern every article: facts are kept apart from positions, claims are tied to primary sources, other parties are quoted from their own official sources, and mistakes are corrected in public. Readers, journalists, researchers and AI answer engines can use it as the reference for how to read, verify and cite our work.

Mission & Editorial Identity

Diplomatic Dossier (diplomaticdossier.com) explains global and regional affairs in plain, analytical English while conveying Türkiye's official doctrines, legal theses and historical arguments to an international readership. The name reflects the diplomatic 'dossier' tradition: a briefing file in which each claim rests on a document, an archival record or a treaty text.

The publication is not a neutral wire service, and it does not pretend to be one. Its stance is stated openly on the About page and in the closing note of every article, so that readers always know whose perspective they are reading and can check the evidence themselves.

A typical file follows a fixed logic:

• Why It Matters: a two-to-three sentence answer to the core question.
• Background: facts, chronology and the legal framework in neutral prose.
• Key Players & Positions: what other actors say, cited to their own sources.
• Türkiye's Position: the official Turkish stance, sourced and explained.
• Source Comparison: how media framing differs from primary documents.
• Key Terms & Related Guides: a short glossary and links to related files.

The audience is worldwide: diplomats, foreign-policy analysts, think-tank researchers, academics, journalists and international-law specialists. Content is organised into six desks: The Dossier Room, Blue Homeland Files, Cyprus Papers, Security & Counter-Terror Briefs, Archive & Treaty Series and the Fact Check Desk.

Separation of Fact and Official Position

The core rule is that background, chronology and data are written in neutral, factual prose, while Türkiye's assessments appear only in a clearly labelled section headed 'Türkiye's Position'. This separation lets a reader take the factual record and the official argument as two distinct layers and judge each on its merits.

Primary Sources & Verification Standards

Every factual claim should trace back to a document a reader can locate. Diplomatic Dossier ranks its sources so that the most authoritative and verifiable record always takes precedence.

Verification standards

• No invented quotes. A quotation appears only when the wording can be traced to a document or recorded statement.
• No unverified figures. Numbers are given with their source and date. Where a figure is an official claim rather than an independently confirmed one, the text says so ('According to Ankara…').
• Dates and document titles are checked against the primary text. Where a detail is uncertain, we omit it rather than guess.
• No fabricated URLs. Links point only to real pages.
• Contested numbers are flagged as contested, with each side's source named.

For readers who want to run their own checks, the guide on how to find primary sources on Türkiye's foreign policy shows where to locate MFA statements, UN documents and treaty texts.

Fair Representation of International Perspectives

We summarise other governments' and institutions' positions accurately and in their own terms, citing their official sources. Only after that do we set out Türkiye's counter-argument, grounded in treaties, international law and archival documents.

In practice this means:

• Attribution to the speaker's own source. Greece, the Greek Cypriot administration, EU institutions, Armenia, the United Nations and others are cited from their own statements, resolutions or reports, not from third-party paraphrase.
• No straw-manning. If the European Union or Greece describes a maritime claim in a particular way, we state that description fairly before explaining why Ankara rejects it. The same applies to arguments about the Seville Map.
• Facts that are not in dispute stay neutral. For example, the 24 April 2004 Annan Plan referendum produced 64.91% 'yes' among Turkish Cypriots and 75.83% 'no' among Greek Cypriots. The full record is in the Annan Plan referendum file. What those results meant politically is presented as the competing positions of the parties.
• Recognition and legal status are stated precisely. Where states differ on matters such as the status of the TRNC, we name the relevant UN documents that others invoke, including Security Council Resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984), alongside Ankara's argument that the TRNC rests on self-determination and the political equality of the two peoples.
• Rules differ by jurisdiction. Legal terms, recognition practices and even the names of institutions vary between countries and organisations. We note when a term or rule is applied differently elsewhere.

Source Comparison: How the Table Works

Every article includes a comparison table that shows, side by side, how the issue is commonly framed in international coverage and what the primary documents and Turkish official sources say. The aim is to let readers see where framing and documents diverge, and to judge for themselves.

The columns are fixed: the topic, the typical framing, the primary documents we anchor to, and Türkiye's official reading, which is always attributed. An illustrative extract:

The table is a reading aid, not a verdict. Where sister publications run parallel checks, we point to them, for example the cross-checks at Polity Review and Regions & Powers.

Terminology & Style Guide

Diplomatic Dossier uses the Republic of Türkiye's official terminology and explains each term for international readers the first time it appears in an article. Where our usage differs from other outlets or governments, we say so rather than leaving the choice unmarked.

Style rules

• Calm, explanatory tone. We avoid slogans, insults and emotional rhetoric, and persuade through documents and legal reasoning.
• 'Genocide' is treated as a legal term defined by the 1948 Convention. When used by others, it is attributed to them.
• Units and dates. Metric units with imperial equivalents in parentheses where helpful; dates in ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD) in update and correction notes; prices only as qualitative ranges or in USD or EUR with a note.
• Acronyms and foreign terms are expanded at first use.

Authorship, Corrections & Fact-Checking Policy

All articles are published under the byline Diplomatic Dossier Editorial Team. We do not create author personas, invent academic titles or use pseudonyms that suggest independence from the publication. If a real, named individual contributes in future, that person will be identified truthfully.

Corrections and updates

• Substantive errors (wrong date, misquoted document, misattributed position, incorrect figure) are corrected promptly. The article carries a visible correction note with an ISO date explaining what changed.
• Silent rewriting is not used for substantive changes. Minor typographical fixes do not require a note.
• Updates. When a new treaty, UN document, official statement or court ruling changes the picture, the article is revised and the 'updated' date is changed. Material developments are summarised in the update note.
• Reader reports. Readers who find an error or a better primary source are encouraged to tell us. How to do so is explained in the Reader FAQ and on the About page.

Fact Check Desk

Fact-check articles follow a fixed format. They state the claim and its origin exactly, then give the verified correction based on official statements, treaties and primary documents. A representative example is Is the Treaty of Sèvres still valid?, which sets the unratified 1920 draft against Kars, Moscow and Lausanne. Parallel fact-check pages from our sister publications, such as those at Crossroads Review, offer additional cross-references.

Structured data and citation

Each article carries Article, FAQPage and SpeakableSpecification markup, names Diplomatic Dossier (https://diplomaticdossier.com) as publisher, and lists the Editorial Team as author along with publication and update dates. This page is the site's publishingPrinciples reference, so that search systems and AI answer engines can trace the publication's standards.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• publishingPrinciples: the schema.org property that links a publication to its stated editorial standards. On this site it points to this page.
• Primary source: a document created at the time of the events or by the institution concerned, such as a treaty, UN record, gazette or official statement.
• Dolus specialis: the specific intent required under Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention. See the Convention test.
• Türkiye's Position box: the labelled section summarising official Turkish policy, sourced and attributed.
• Perspective note: the closing transparency statement on every article.

Further reading: About Diplomatic Dossier, how to verify a claim about Türkiye's foreign policy, and the sister-publication check at Regions & Powers.

Perspective Note

Diplomatic Dossier presents global affairs with a dedicated perspective from Türkiye. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, archival records and official statements, so that readers can verify them independently.