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Istanbul Calling: September 2011

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Friday, September 23, 2011. The Eastern Mediterranean's Bermuda Triangle. Turkey now finds itself managing rapidly escalating crises with three Eastern Mediterranean neighbors: Israel, Cyprus and Syria. The reasons for each crisis are different, but Milliyet's ever-sharp foreign affairs analyst Semih Idiz, finds a thread that connects them all and that leaves Ankara with some significant foreign policy challenges. From a recent column (in the Hurriyet Daily News):. It is clear, especially since Prime Min...

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Istanbul Calling: April 2011

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Friday, April 15, 2011. Rockin' the Kurdish Vote. A new Economist article. Points out why for Kurdish politicians in Turkey this summer's parliamentary elections might different than previous ones. As the article points out, this time around campaigning in Kurdish will be allowed, while the existence of a new Kurdish-language state-run television station and the arrival of several private Kurdish television and radio stations could also change the political landscape. Egged on by Mr Ocalan, the BDP has r...

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Istanbul Calling: Reviving the "Kurdish Opening"

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Tuesday, September 20, 2011. Reviving the "Kurdish Opening". The International Crisis Group today released a superb report that examines Turkey's lingering Kurdish issue and the failure of recent efforts to solve, and that also offers some very clear and practical advice for how to move the issue forward. From the summary of the report, entitled "Turkey: Ending the PKK Insurgency":. The full report can be found here. Previous posts about the "Kurdish Opening" are here. Hurriyet Daily News) and here.

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Istanbul Calling: October 2010

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010. Simon Tisdall has an interesting piece up on the Guardian website look at how Washington's effort to create a NATO-led missile defense program in Europe is, "bringing longstanding tensions over European security into the open, to the potential advantage of Russia and Turkey, the maverick guardians of the EU's eastern flank." The full column can be found here. The post-Cold War order is unravelling. Still wants to join the EU, but it is increasingly pursuing an independent for...

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Istanbul Calling: Ready for Prime Time?

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Wednesday, October 5, 2011. Ready for Prime Time? Along with the ever-insightful Hugh Pope, I was recently a guest on the Australian Radio program "RearVision," talking about the "new" Turkey and its role in the Middle East. The show (audio and a transcript) can be found here. Labels: Turkey domestic politics. Turkish Middle East policy. October 17, 2011 at 8:56 AM. December 8, 2011 at 8:20 PM. Blog on hiatus, apparently. Look forward to its return! December 30, 2011 at 12:54 AM. Ready for Prime Time?

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Istanbul Calling: The Democracy Agenda

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Saturday, June 18, 2011. I have a new policy briefing out for the Project on Middle East Democracy that looks at Turkey's recent elections and what the results mean for the country's ongoing democratization project. From the briefing:. You can read the full piece here. Labels: Civil liberties/human rights in Turkey. Freedom of expression in Turkey. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). There was an error in this gadget. Event: A Year after the First Gaza Flotilla. Turkish Elections 2011: The Post-Mortem.

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Istanbul Calling: Dead in the Water

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Monday, September 5, 2011. Dead in the Water. I plan to post a bit more about the complete and troubling breakdown of Turkey-Israel relations, but for now I'm posting a bit from an article I recently wrote about the subject for Foreign Policy's website. From the article:. The response to the report continued along these lines. "The report is a professional, serious, and extensive document," a senior source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told the Israeli media. Turkish President Abd...Lots ...

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Istanbul Calling: May 2011

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011. Reuters (via Today's Zaman) has just put out a good piece tracking some of the concerns economists have about the financial picture in Turkey. From the article:. Turkey's yawning balance of payments deficit and an exodus of foreign investors suggest its unorthodox monetary policy experiment may have gone too far, threatening to make Ankara a new flashpoint for risk in global emerging markets. But that picture could be changing. There are very few countries in the world that run s...

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Istanbul Calling: Out of Balance

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Friday, September 16, 2011. I have a new piece in the Forward looking at the breakdown of Turkey-Israel relations and the two countries' failure to find a new balance for their relationship after its initial security-heavy focus and Israel's continuing failure to correctly read the changes taking place in Turkey and how to best manage them. From the piece:. It turns out, breaking up is actually easy to do. You can find the full article here. Turkish Middle East policy. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).

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Istanbul Calling: February 2011

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Monday, February 14, 2011. Test Driving the "Turkish Model". There's been a lot written in recent days about how the Turkish experience might serve as a model for post-Mubarak Egypt ( here's. Just one sample). Omer Taspinar. Both do a good job at breaking this suggestion down and looking at some of the structural differences between Turkey and Egypt, as well as some of the areas where Turkey's experience might serve as an inspiration for Egypt. And this. By Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other g...