Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Turkey

Erdogan stays in control – for now

Erdogan stays in control – for now

In September 2011, on the heels of the Arab Spring upheaval, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, visited Cairo. In the shadow of the chaos of the Arab Spring, he took the opportunity to point out that “the Turkish state is in its core a state of freedoms and secularism.” Two and a half […]

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Michael Werz on Turkey

Michael Werz on Turkey

Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will tackle a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. The Great Decisions podcasts can also be found […]

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Were the Ottomans the “good” imperialists?

Were the Ottomans the “good” imperialists?

In an article entitled “In Defense of Empire” published on March 19, chief geopolitical analyst at Stratfor and national correspondent for the Atlantic Robert Kaplan argues we ought to bring back a form of American “imperialism.” Imperialism, he argues, is both misunderstood and an effective governing tool. While I don’t intend to focus on the […]

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Kurds eye independence in oil

Kurds eye independence in oil

To the south, Iraqi Kurdistan sees an unstable Baghdad struggling to maintain control against a violent insurgency, all the while seeking to exert control over the Kurdish region’s vast oil wealth. It is to the west, though, where Kurds see a brighter future, eyeing the opportunity for independence through a pipeline to Turkey to sell […]

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May be time to accentuate the positives in Egypt, Turkey

May be time to accentuate the positives in Egypt, Turkey

Last month I wrote about The Economist’s timely debate about how democracy is doing these days. For the final tally of the public vote, 69 percent agreed with me that concerns about the health of democracy are not overblown. Two chief concerns are Egypt and Turkey. In an op-ed last week for “Christian Science Monitor,” […]

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The Legacy of The Ottoman Empire: Conflict, Colonies and Peter O’Toole

The Legacy of The Ottoman Empire: Conflict, Colonies and Peter O’Toole

The recent death of actor Peter O’Toole has renewed some interest in the real life character portrayed in his greatest role, that of T.E Lawrence in the film Lawrence of Arabia. O’Toole not only looked like a virtual double of T.E. Lawrence, but the film about how the Middle East had developed into its modern […]

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Fed Taper Injects U.S. Economics into Turkish Politics

Fed Taper Injects U.S. Economics into Turkish Politics

    The Turkish Central Bank raised interest rates drastically on January 28, re-setting the one-week bank lending rate at 10 percent, up from 4.5 percent, and hiking its rate on overnight lending to banks from 7.75 percent to 12 percent.   The move has ramifications for America’s influence in the world.  In Turkish politics, […]

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Turkey’s Test of Wills

Turkey’s Test of Wills

In recent months, Turkey—more specifically, Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP)—has been the center of controversy and the subject of passionate debates. The other side of this political controversy is the spiritual leader of the Hizmet or Gulen Movement, Fethullah Gulen. However, as with all matters political; things are […]

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Erdogan Losing Control

Erdogan Losing Control

The corruption scandal rocking Turkey shows no signs of abatement. Already dozens of high ranking officials and their close associates have either resigned, been jailed, or brought into questioning. The New York Times reports that even Erdogan’s own son appears to have been summoned for questioning. In the ensuing counteroffensive launched by the Erdogan administration […]

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Erdogan Strikes Back

Erdogan Strikes Back

Last month, a massive corruption scandal rocked Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s political legitimacy. Believed to have been initiated by the Fethullah Gulen, a politically active cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, a police operation arrested over 50 police chiefs, prominent politicians’ relatives, and other supporters of the Erdogan administration. Yesterday, according to the New York Times, the […]

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Erdogan’s Base Shaken in Massive Corruption Probe

Erdogan’s Base Shaken in Massive Corruption Probe

The BBC reports that approximately 52 people, including five police chiefs and three sons of cabinet ministers were arrested yesterday for their alleged involvement in a bribery scandal. The operation is believed to be a part a larger political offensive led by Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Turkish Muslim leader currently living in exile in the U.S., and […]

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Art as Politics

Art as Politics

It is not often that a rug becomes caught in the crosshairs of foreign policy and cast away from artistic appreciation, yet the 1920s Armenian orphan rug that was planned for display in December at the Smithsonian Museum suffers just this fate. Bound by the common thread of their identity as children and survivors of […]

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The paucity of hope

The paucity of hope

Nothing seems to be safe in Egypt these days.  Political opponents of the military leadership are the chief targets for the attacks, attacks that include live fire from security forces. They are not alone: The seething rampages have spread to Christian churches, the media, foreigners, those held in custody, and even to the corpses waiting […]

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The Politics of Political Islam

The Politics of Political Islam

I don’t know who deserves the attribution as far as the coining is concerned, I only know—like the terms Islamism, sharia, and jihad — so-called political Islam is a loaded term that stirs storms of controversy. Despite that baggage, it is the prevalent concept that defines all political parties and movements with Islamic references. This […]

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The Humanitarian Toll of the Syrian Crisis

The Humanitarian Toll of the Syrian Crisis

Syria long ago became a source of a steady trickle of bad news but recent reports coming from several UN agencies working in Syria highlight just how dire the humanitarian situation there has become. First up is a new report from the World Food Programme and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that found as […]

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Foreign Policy Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program. Staffed by professional contributors from the worlds of journalism, academia, business, non-profits and think tanks, the FPB network tracks global developments on Great Decisions 2014 topics, daily. The FPB network is a production of the Foreign Policy Association.