Post Pic

The AKP’s New Dialogue with Öcalan: A Process but Which Process?

The AKP is conducting a “psychological war” rather than sincerely trying to solve the Kurdish Issue… Continue reading

Post Pic

Fighting Blind: The AKP’s Increasingly Hardline Kurdish Policy

Even if the Turkish military wins every battle against the PKK, an even more dangerous war is being lost… Continue reading

Post Pic

Erdogan’s Way – Confrontation at Home and Abroad – May be Backfiring

Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party has been well served by the confrontational style of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan… Continue reading

Post Pic

What Does Turkey Hope to Achieve with Its War Threats Against Syria?

The Turkish government appears to hope to deter the continued Syrian – and Iranian – deployment of the Kurdish card against Turkey… Continue reading

Post Pic

Erdogan’s Invitation to Gülen: Reconciliation or Power Play?

On June 14, 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly invited Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the powerful Gülen Movement, to return to Turkey from self-imposed exile in the United States… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkey and Syria: An Undeclared State of War

After Syria’s downing of a Turkish aircraft over the eastern Mediterranean, the question is not so much why Syria shot it down as why the two neighbors have become embroiled in a confrontation in the first place… Continue reading

Post Pic

Values and Identity: The Resurgence of the Kurdish Hizbullah

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the center of Diyarbakır for a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth. The event was organized by a coalition of NGOs affiliated with the radical Sunni Islamist organization known in Turkey as Hizbullah… Continue reading

Post Pic

The General who Staged the 1980 Coup is Put on Trial, But His Legacy Reigns Supreme

The trial of the two surviving members of the junta that seized power on September 12, 1980, in a coup that altered Turkey’s course, is an historic event, but… Continue reading

Post Pic

Reinventing a Broken Wheel: The AKP’s ‘New’ Kurdish Strategy

On 21 March 2012, Turkish government officials began briefing trusted journalists on what they described as the new strategy of the ruling AKP for solving the country’s long-running Kurdish problem… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Syrian Uprising: Turkish-Syrian Relations Go Downhill

As Syria sinks deeper and deeper into the throes of civil war, the decade-long honeymoon between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and Bashar al-Assad’s regime has all but ended… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Snake that Doesn’t Touch Me: Turkey’s Special Authority Courts

In response to increasing international concern about controversial cases such as Ergenekon, Sledgehammer and KCK, the AKP has repeatedly insisted that the judicial system is independent and that there is nothing that it can do… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkey as an Arena for Iranian and Hezbollah Terrorism and Subversion

Turkey and Iran often state that there has been peace along their border for more than four hundred years… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Coalition Crumbles: Erdoğan, the Gülenists, and Turkish Democracy

The authority of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been challenged by the security apparatus, the police and parts of the judiciary that enjoy the backing of the brotherhood of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen… Continue reading

Post Pic

Will Turkey Be Able to Join the West in Confronting Iran?

The international sanctions against Iran, and most recently the decision of the EU countries to stop importing oil from Iran, are ultimately going to have a major impact on Turkey… Continue reading

Post Pic

Ankara and Baghdad: A Parting of Ways?

Until now, Turkey’s presence in Iraq has generally been encouraged by all major Iraqi groups… Continue reading

Post Pic

Tactical Allies and Strategic Rivals: Turkey’s Changing Relations with Iran

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, declared that, if Iran came under attack from the U.S. or Israel… Continue reading

Post Pic

What Drives Turkish Foreign Policy?

Turkey’s growing international profile has been controversial… Continue reading

Post Pic

Obama Foreign Policy in A Brief: The President as Turkey

How can U.S. government officials believe such silly and wrong things about the Middle East… Continue reading

Post Pic

Syria, Turkey and the Kurds

Bashar al-Assad is apparently aiming to destabilize Turkey… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkish Foreign Policy in Evolution

Turkish government representatives insist that they want to develop good ties in all directions… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Latest KCK Arrests: One Step Closer to Breaking Point

The AKP is using the KCK investigation as an instrument to try to crush all opposition to its increasingly hawkish policies on the Kurdish issue… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkey: in between Political Islam and the Military

This paper analyses the impact of domestic dynamics on its relations with Israel during the current AKP government and the RP led government in the 1990s… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkey’s Anti-PKK Operation Faces Major Obstacles

The Turkish government has now responded with one of its largest counterinsurgency operations in years… Continue reading

Post Pic

Turkey’s New Constitution: a Last Chance to Solve the Kurdish Issue?

There has long been a broad consensus that Turkey’s current constitution needs to be replaced… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Secret MIT-PKK Talks: Was a Turkish-Kurdish Peace Accord Ever Close?

The effort to explore a peaceful solution was doomed because ultimately the ruling AKP has not disengaged from Turkish state tradition… Continue reading