On February 1, U.S. Embassy in Ankara – in a calm, residential and business neighborhood — was bombed. At the time of writing this, police statements indicate that it is believed to be a suicide attack and the attacker(s) detonated the bomb inside the security checkpoint bunker, killing at least …
Recently, a Turkish public opinion survey, conducted by MetroPoll was published, showing important shifts in the public perception of the government and politics. Conducted through 14-19 September 2012, in 27 cities, surveying 1275 respondents, the poll indicates serious shifts in public perception in the last three months.
Those who believe …
September 6, 2012
by H.A. Unver
http://fikraforum.org/?p=2644
On August 20, a car bomb went off in the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep on the Syrian border, killing nine civilians, including four children. The Turkish government blamed the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group on the U.S. Department of …
I have recently concluded an e-mail interview with the Southeast European Times on the kidnapped Turkish deputy; Mr. Hüseyin Aygün of the Republican People’s Party – CHP. Here is the full version of the interview:
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August 14, 2012
What happens to the ones that are being kidnapped by PKK?
PKK doesn’t …
According to Turkish news agency NTV, the Kurdish militant group PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) has kidnapped a member of the parliament; this appeared as ‘breaking news’ in many other Turkish media outlets just about half an hour ago and the story in unfolding as I’m writing this post.
According …
Acting on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s directives for the production of long-range missile with 2500km (1553 miles) range, Turkey’s Defense Industry Executive Committee has formally announced its decision to commence design and production work for an ICBM.
According to Turkish NTV and Zaman news agencies, sources in …
Dear FPA Blog followers,
You might know that I feature some analyses and articles not published elsewhere for the benefit of this blog. This post is one of them; it is written by an exceedingly capable student of mine at Princeton – Miguel Vargas, whose final article for the course ‘International …
Dear FPA Blog followers,
As many of you know, FPA’s ‘Great Decisions’ program, dealing with the Arab Spring and its implications for U.S. policy came out earlier this year. I was asked to write a review of the program; that review later turned into a larger article, …
Yesterday, I joined Al-Jazeera’s ‘Inside Story’ for a panel discussion on Turkey’s 1980 coup trial. The program offers an introduction to the coup as well as the coup case, so I will not mention them here. Apart from what I had mentioned in my brief comments, I want to …
While Turkish foreign policy makers have been emphasizing concepts such as ‘soft power’ and ‘zero-problems policy’ after the ascent of the AKP government in 2002, the Arab Spring effectively heralded an era in which Turkey is retaining its soft power advantages, while simultaneously pursuing a more Realist (as in IR …
This article originally appeared on the Fikra Forum (March 22, 2012)
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In recent months, as uncertainty over Assad’s future continues, Turkey’s position with regard to its potential military or humanitarian intervention has been heavily debated. While Turkish leaders have condemned the Syrian government’s brutal suppression of dissent since February …
This following post is from Nazim Can Cicektakan, a PhD candidate at the University of Essex, Department of History, who recently returned back from a research visit to the Turkish province of Hatay, on the border of Syria. I asked him whether he could write a summary of his thoughts …
This article, appeared on the Political Reflections Magazine, vol.3, n.2, is the second part of my review of FPA’s Great Decisions episode on the Arab Spring: The first part, providing a general overview of the debate can be found here.
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As the uncertainty of the Arab Spring …
I was recently asked to review FPA’s Great Decisions episode on the Arab Spring, featuring columnist Mona Eltahawy and Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and also featuring short comments from key foreign policy professionals like Madeleine Albright, General Michael Hayden, Robert Malley and Carl Gershman.
U.S. …
Dear FPA Blogs followers,
Azeri APA News Agency recently conducted an interview with me regarding the French National Assembly’s decision to criminalize the refusal to refer to the events of 1909-15 as a genocide and how this affects Turkey’s Caucasus policy. This is the transcript of that interview:
