Abstract The Ulukisla Basin, the southerly and best exposed of the Lower Tertiary Central Anatolian Basins, sheds light on one of the outstanding problems of the tectonic assembly of suture zones: how large deep-water basins can form within a zone of regional plate convergence. The oldest Ulukisla Basin sediments, of Maastrichtian age, transgressively overlie melange and ophiolitic rocks that were emplaced southwards onto the Tauride microcontinent during the latest Cretaceous time. The Nigde-Kirsehir Massif forming the northern basin margin probably represents another rifted continental fragment that was surrounded by oceanic crust during Mesozoic time. The stratigraphic succession of the Ulukisla Basin begins with the deposition of shallow-marine carbonates of Maastrichtian–Early Palaeocene age, then passes upwards into slope-facies carbonates, with localised sedimentary breccias and channelised units, followed by deep-water clastic turbidites of Middle Palaeocene–Early Eocene age. This was followed by the extrusion of c. 2000 m of basic volcanic rocks during Early to Mid Eocene time. After volcanism ended, coral-bearing neritic carbonates and nummulitic shelf sediments accumulated along the northern and southern margins of the basin, respectively. Deposition of the Ulukisla Basin ended with gypsum deposits including turbidites, debris flows, and sabkhas, followed by a regional Oligocene unconformity. The Ulukisla Basin is interpreted as the result of extension (or transtension) coupled with subsidence and basic volcanism. After post-volcanic subsidence, the basin was terminated by regional convergence, culminating in thrusting and folding in Late Eocene time. Comparisons of the Ulukisla Basin with the adjacent central Anatolian basins (e.g. Tuzgolu, Sivas and Sarkisla) support the view that these basins formed parts of a regional transtensional (to extensional) basin system. In our preferred hypothesis, the Ulukisla Basin developed during an intermediate stage of continental collision, after steady-state subduction of oceanic crust had more or less ended (“soft collision”), but before the opposing Tauride and Eurasian continental units forcefully collided (“hard collision”). Late Eocene forceful collision terminated the basinal evolution and initiated uplift of the Taurus Mountains.