Turkish media recently reported that a new Islamic-leaning Kurdish party will soon join the political scene in Ankara. The new party will be named Kürdistani İslam Partisi, or the Kurdistani Islamic Party. Turkey’s Political Parties Act, however, does not permit political parties to be formed with the name of a race, sect …
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 …
From John R. Bradley, the Middle East correspondent and writer who correctly predicted the Egyptian revolution, comes a new message about the Arab Spring: “everything we have been told about it is wrong”. John R. Bradley sat down with Reza Akhlaghi, Senior Writer at FPA, to discuss his latest book: ‘After …
Hardly a day goes by in Turkey without a political crisis shaking the capital city of Ankara. Turkey’s latest political crisis broke out when special-authority prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya in Istanbul summoned several high level members of Turkey’s intelligence agency, the MIT (National Intelligence Organization). On February 9th, MIT chief Hakan …
On behalf of all Middle East writers at Foreign Policy Association, I am writing to extend our heart-felt condolences on the passing of Anthony Shadid, a true Middle East expert and a great source of inspiration for many of us here at FPA Blogs.
As we mourn Anthony’s loss, we hope …
A textbook case of hate speech in Turkish media: The story, entitled ‘Mishcon Indecency,’ suggests that “Zionists, who have been doing ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century” show that “they have no limit to indecency (or moral corruption)” because some members of the Israeli lobby in the United States supported …
In the recent South Carolina GOP Presidential Primary, Fox News’s Brett Baier asked an extremely misleading question to Rick Perry about Turkey’s ‘Islamist oriented’ government, and what policies should the U.S. have towards it. This is how Baier started his question:
“Since the Islamist oriented party took over in Turkey the …
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:
The past year in Israel has been anything but boring. The Palestinians were rejected for full-membership in the United Nations, Israeli Corporal Gilad Schalit was returned alive to Israel, Turkey downgraded its diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, the Israeli population took to the streets for social change, …
I have recently read an opinion piece by Fehim Tastekin, a Turkish Caucasus expert, who regularly writes for the Turkish daily Radikal. I found the article very important, so I translated it to the attention of FPA Blogs followers:
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http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalYazar&ArticleID=1073865&Yazar=FEHIM-TASTEKIN&Date=30.12.2011&CategoryID=100
Amidst its growing engagement in the Middle East and the Arab Spring, …
Irrespective of one’s ideological affiliations, 2011 was an inconvenient year for the Middle East, to put it mildly. The speed at which Arab Spring brought about change has been baffling to most of us and inevitably prepared us for more drastic changes to come. Now let’s take a look at …
Dear followers of the FPA blog,
I recently participated in a panel discussion on Turkey’s ‘new’ foreign policy in the Middle East and the Arab Spring, for ‘The Agenda with Steve Paikin’.
Also featuring Henri Barkey, Janice Stein, Atif Kuburski and Howard Eissenstat, the full video (55 minutes) …
Summary of Turkish foreign policy in 2011
2011 was in many ways a milestone in modern Turkish history. First, the Arab Spring not only shook the Western influence in the region, it also ended the post-colonial period in the Middle East, marked by authoritarian-suppressive regimes, which in their way mirrored and …
