Brookings: Experts - Mark R. Parris

Turkey, Russia and Regional Energy Strategies

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:30:00 -0400

Event Information

July 15, 2009
9:30 AM - 3:45 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Historically, relations between Turkey and Russia have been characterized more often by competition—if not outright war—than by cooperation. Yet centuries of imperial rivalry and decades of Cold War hostility have recently given way to quite different dynamics. Russia has become Turkey’s largest trading partner and a major target of Turkish foreign investment. Since Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to visit Turkey in 500 years, engagement between the two countries has increased in intensity and seriousness. Some analysts have seen a convergence of perspective between Ankara and Moscow on issues ranging from Palestine to Iran to the Caucasus. Further, as energy looms larger in the domestic and regional calculus of both countries, especially in terms of their respective European relationships, the strategic importance of their rapprochement has grown.

On July 15, the Center on the United States and Europe and the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings hosted leading experts from Turkey, Russia and Europe for a conference focusing on Turkey’s and Russia’s roles in European energy security and the role of energy in shaping cooperation and stability in neighboring regions. Richard Morningstar, special envoy for Eurasian energy at the U.S. Department of State, provided a keynote address.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20090715_turkey_russia_energy

Participants

Panelists

Moderator: Ömer Taşpınar

Nonresident Fellow and Director, Turkey Project, The Brookings Institution

Stephen Larrabee

Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation

Vladimir Milov

President, Institute of Energy Policy, Russia

Volkan Vural

Counselor to Chairman, Doğan Holding, Turkey

Alexandros Petersen

Fellow for Transatlantic Energy Security and Associate Director, Eurasia Energy Center
Atlantic Council of the United States

Moderator: Steven Pifer

Acting Director, Center on the United States and Europe, The Brookings Institution

Mithat Balkan

Former Turkish Ambassador to Iran and Austria

Jeff D. Makholm

Senior Vice President, National Economic Research Associates, Inc.

Moderator: Mark Parris

Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Keynote Address: Richard Morningstar

Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, U.S. Department of State

Moderator: Martha Brill Olcott

Senior Associate, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Saban Kardas

Research Assistant, Sakarya University, Turkey

Cory Welt

Director, Eurasian Strategy Project, Georgetown University

Victor Nadein-Raevsky

Senior Scientific Research Fellow, Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russia

U.S.-Turkish Relations: A Historic Era?

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 13, 2009
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

A positive, constructive relationship with Turkey has never been more important to Europe and the United States. Bordering Iraq, Iran, Syria and the Caucasus, Turkey also occupies the corridor between Western markets and the Caspian Sea energy reserves. A stable, Western-oriented Turkey en route toward EU membership would provide a growing market for exports, a source of needed labor, a positive influence on the Middle East, and a critical ally. An inward-looking Turkey, on the other hand, would be a disaster not only for the West but for Turkey itself.

At the onset of what has recently been labeled by Turkey’s chief foreign policy adviser as a "historic era" in bilateral relations, President Barack Obama visited Turkey in early April. Is the trip evidence that the once-fading relationship will be revived, and if so, will the stronger ties anchor Turkey decidedly toward the West?

On April 13, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings hosted a panel discussion on the future of U.S.-Turkish relations. Ömer Taşpınar, director of Brookings’s Turkey Project, offered analysis and recommendations from his recent book, Winning Turkey (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Bilgi University presented the findings of a new report published by the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) entitled “Rebuilding a Partnership: Turkish-American Relations for a New Era – A Turkish Perspective.”

Arzuhan Dogan Yalcindag, chair of TUSIAD, made introductory remarks, and visiting fellow Mark Parris moderated an audience question and answer session following the panelists’ remarks.

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Arzuhan Dogan Yalcindag

Chair, Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD)

Soli Ozel

Bilgi University, Istanbul

Obama Sees Turkey's Influence and Value

Samuel Berger and Mark R. Parris — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:00:00 -0400

The past few years have been hard on America's partnership with the Republic of Turkey. Some Americans blame Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Party; they claim Erdogan and his formerly Islamist colleagues have systematically pushed Turkey from its Western orbit toward a Muslim orientation.

These critics very likely did not welcome President Obama's decision to include Ankara on his first major trip abroad. They are missing the point. Since 2002, Turkey's regional stature has waxed while a distracted America's has waned. Today more than ever, Turkey can help—or hurt—American interests.

When it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, there are few international players outside Washington with greater clout on both sides of the border than Turkey.

Turkish diplomats have deftly engaged both countries at critical moments. Turkey is a mainstay of NATO's force in Afghanistan, has trained Afghan police, and can take on missions like setting up girls' schools and hospitals that are problematic for other NATO partners. In addition, Turkish bases may be useful as NATO sorts out supply routes for expanding operations.

On Iran, Tehran doesn't listen to many countries, but it listens to Turkey. Just days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Ankara in March, President Abdullah Gul traveled to Tehran to tell Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to take the new U.S. administration seriously. Ankara enjoys that access because of its engagement policy, which has seen Turkish-Iranian commercial and other ties swell even as Turkey has delivered hard messages on the need to end Iran's nuclear weapons program.

On Iraq, Erdogan has signaled Turkey's full cooperation as U.S. forces withdraw. Equally important, Turkey's proximity and strong interest in a unified, prosperous Iraq will make it a major player as the U.S. military role winds down—and its recent overtures to Iraq's Kurds enhance its ability to mediate among Iraq's various factions.

In the Middle East, Turkey has credibility on both the Syrian and Palestinian "tracks," which has proven constructive in Syria-Israel indirect talks and negotiations for a Gaza cease-fire, and helps explain why George Mitchell has already visited Ankara twice.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. administration seeks to "reset" relations with Russia, Ankara will play a new role. Russia has become Turkey's largest trading partner; it has targeted Turkey as the key to consolidating its energy primacy; and Russian-Turkish positions have converged on issues from Black Sea security to Iran to Gaza. The days when Ankara would simply follow the U.S. lead on Russia are over. But Turkey can and is willing to be more of a full partner on Russia than in the past.

None of this is to say that the United States and Turkey can expect strategic partnership to be seamless. While both sides traditionally describe U.S.-Turkish relations as based on "common values and interests," perspectives compete on such interests as calibrating carrots vs. sticks on Iran; the proper role for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah; Russia's place in strategic energy transportation; what constitute legitimate security steps by Israel; and how to deal with Sudan.

In terms of values, the Obama administration must acknowledge the complexity of Turkey's real but still maturing democracy. There should be no doubt of U.S. readiness to work with freely elected Turkish leaders. Neither can the United States ignore Erdogan's efforts to take his electoral successes as license to intimidate critics in the media and elsewhere.

Then there is question of the April anniversary of the 1915 events that Armenians call "genocide" and how Congress—or the White House—will mark the tragic events in the Ottoman Empire at the start of the last century. Reports of imminent moves to normalize Turkey's relations with Armenia are welcome. If implemented swiftly, such a process could defuse an early crisis in U.S.-Turkish relations.

As for the AK government's "Islamic" orientation, it is true that Erdogan and his colleagues view the world through the eyes of devout Muslims. But that does not mean our leaders cannot find common ground, or have respectful, candid discussions. Not engaging with Turkey's government simply raises the likelihood that Turkish and American policies will grow apart.

Thus, relations with Turkey will demand hands-on attention long after President Obama leaves Ankara. And that is how it should be. As a strategically located, secular democracy of nearly 80 million people, most of them Muslims; a member of NATO, the OECD, the G-20, the U.N. Security Council, the Organization of the Islamic Conference; and a candidate for the European Union, Turkey is worth the time and effort.

It is to President Obama's credit that he has understood this so soon.

Authors

Samuel Berger
Mark R. Parris

Publication: U.S. News and World Report

Prospect for U.S.-Turkish Relations in the Obama Era

Mark R. Parris — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0500

Mark Parris spoke to the International Investors Association (YASED) conference in Istanbul. His speech covered the U.S.-Turkish relationship and how it may fare in the opening years of Barack Obama's administration. Parris shared his sense of factors likely to shape the new administrations Turkey policy.

It is always a delight to be here in Istanbul. This is a wonderful city, and some of my best friends in the world are here. It is both a pleasure and an honor to be asked once again to address YASED – this time as a private citizen rather than as, on previous occasions, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. And this is probably a good moment to emphasize that my remarks this evening are entirely my own: I do not represent and will not try to speak for the new Administration in Washington.

It has been over eight years since I ended my assignment to Ankara. I don’t get to Turkey as much as I would like to these days. But I do try to follow events here. And my sense is that Turks, like others around the world, have greeted with great hope and anticipation the election last November of Barack Hussein Obama.

As President Obama’s predecessor once famously said: “There is something refreshing about an election.” This is one case where George W. Bush had it right: elections in democratic societies are refreshing. New leaders, like new years, are opportunities to look ahead. They provide a chance to break out of cycles of behavior or outlook that have failed or been overtaken by events. They invite us to ask ourselves what we want to be, rather than to dwell on what we’ve become.

It’s in that spirit that I’d like to approach my subject for this evening: the U.S. – Turkish relationship, and how it may fare in the opening years of Barack Obama’s administration.

There is of course some context here. Most experts would agree that U.S. – Turkish relations over the past eight years or so have been “sub-prime.” Both sides share blame for that, although those who know my work know that I’ve often criticized the Bush Administration for leaving this relationship worse than it found it. As a new team finds its footing in Washington, there is damage to be repaired, there are opportunity costs to be recouped, there are lessons to be learned.

I won’t be able tonight to predict whether those lessons will be learned, or whether the Obama administration’s stewardship of its relations with Turkey will be smarter and more successful than that of its predecessor. What I will try to do is give you my sense of factors likely to shape the new administration’s Turkey policy.

Those factors are of two types. I’ll call them “structural” and “conjunctural.” Structural factors are about institutions and dynamics: they change slowly when they change at all; they aren’t really affected by whether a President is named “Clinton” or “Bush.” “Conjunctural” is a big word to describe the things Turkish and American leaders are going to have to deal with in the months and years ahead: you can as easily call these factors “the issues” or “the agenda.”

I’ll take the structural factors first.

Structural Factors

Local Politics

The first and most basic thing to remember not just about the U.S. – Turkish relationship, but about America’s relations with any country, or for that matter any nation’s relations with another country, is that politics is local. Politicians are in the business of getting elected. Things that don’t directly affect their prospects at the polls – unless they are truly existential -- will inevitably have second claim on their attention and energy.

What is Barack Obama’s priority? America’s economy. Full stop. The President has named a stellar foreign policy team and is clearly himself a natural at foreign affairs. But history and the American people will judge Barack Obama in 2012 primarily by how well or badly he has handled the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

What is the implication for Turkey? There has always been a tendency in American diplomacy for crises of the moment to crowd out the tending of long-term relationships. The urgent predictably trumps the important. And Turkey, as a country that by and large has been for decades more an asset than a problem for U.S. policy, has inevitably suffered from this phenomenon

Given the magnitude of the economic and other tasks facing President Obama and his team, and despite what I am sure will be the best intentions of those responsible, it will be a challenge to ensure that Turkey receives the timely, senior-level attention it merits as a country that, more than most, can help or hurt the new Administration’s efforts abroad.

Geography

Which gets us to a second structural factor and the enduring bedrock of America’s modern relationship with Turkey: Turkey’s unparalleled location.

Because Turkey has for the past half century or so been so stable and predictable an ally, some in America have occasionally lost sight of the importance of where Turkey sits.

The first years of the Twenty-first Century ought to have put paid to that misconception. The Obama administration comes into office with recent, clear reminders that Turkey is awfully useful if Washington wants to get help to a Georgia, or to support or withdraw forces from Iraq, or to develop alternative supply routes for Afghanistan. It’s awfully useful if you want to coax Russia onto a more constructive path, or to build a coherent strategy toward Iran or Syria. It’s a unique nexus in terms of energy security strategy, or combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction and organized crime.

There may be places in the world as important to the U.S. on one or a few issues we really care about. I can’t think of a place as important on so wide and overlapping a range of interests. And experience shows that, when America needs to use or transit Turkey’s geography, it is usually in a hurry.

It will happen again. And this provides a corrective to my point on local politics. Turkey may not be today at the top of Barack Obama and his senior foreign policy team’s initial “to do” list. But life and geography will get it on their screen in due course. When it does, they will find, as have their predecessors, that it is always easier to work with Turkey than around Turkey. It’s a matter of simple physics.

Identity

So, where Turkey sits is important. But there is another reason Turkey will find its way onto the new Administration’s screen sooner rather than later. Turkey can’t be overlooked for long by Washington because of what it is.

It is, first of all, big: in landmass, in population, in its economy. Size always matters.

In addition, Turkey’s Ottoman legacy gives it unique standing among – and arguably understanding of – players who figure prominently among the Obama administration’s challenges and priorities. Thus the prominent role Ankara has come to play as a mediator among Israelis and Syrians, Syrians and Lebanese, Russians and Georgians, Iraqi Sunni and Shia Arabs, Iran and the world, Israelis, Palestinians and Egyptians, and even Armenians and Azeris.

A country that can operate in such circles is important in terms of U.S. interests. Because of course Turkey also happens to be a functioning democracy, a member of NATO and the OECD, a candidate for EU membership, an active participant each year at Davos, a poster child for the IMF and World Bank, and a newly elected member of the UNSC. It belongs to some really good clubs.

It is also, of course 99% Muslim. And since September 2001, coming to terms with Islam in its many forms has been a core problem of American foreign policy. In one way or another, it will remain so for a generation or more.

Some would argue that the United States has not done a particularly good job of engaging the Muslim world since 2001. Some would argue Turkey is a prime example. But what is indisputable is that, in post 9/11 America, the very existence of a country like Turkey is an important fact. One that demonstrates in concrete terms that there is no necessary contradiction between Islam and the West, between Islam and globalization, between Islam and parliamentary democracy, between Islam and free markets.

Americans are not very good at expressing these sorts of things. We lack the practice; we lack the context, we lack the vocabulary. But call it a “model;” call it an “example,” call it what you will: seen from Washington, Turkey’s success serves fundamental American interests. Reports that Turkey is being considered as the site of an early speech on America and Islam, if true, suggest the Obama team understand this.

Values and Interests

Those of you who follow these things may have noted that I’ve not yet mentioned a factor usually cited at the outset by those seeking to convince audiences that all is well in U.S. – Turkish relations: the notion that our bilateral ties are rooted in common values and interests. There is a reason for that. The fact is that the case is harder to make today than in the past.

Let me be clear: at the level of “interests,” I continue to believe there is a basic correspondence in terms of what each country wants to see happen in the region surrounding Turkey.

It is when you get into the question of how to achieve these ends that there is room for doubt as to whether we are really on the same page in terms of how we perceive our respective interests. And, perversely, Turkey’s more self-confident foreign policy in recent years has sometimes fueled such doubts in America even as it has arguably enhanced Turkey’s potential value to the U.S. as a strategic partner. I’ll have more to say about this in a minute.

As for “values,” we need to acknowledge that both sides’ images in recent years have suffered in the eyes of the other. In Turkey my sense is that this was a function of repeated missteps by the Bush Administration, perhaps the most important of which was the agonizing, unexplainable delay in taking effective action against PKK terror from Iraq. The result was the famous polling data of a few years ago showing U.S. approval ratings in single digits, the lowest in the world.

In the U.S. , meanwhile, perceptions of Turkey have been shaken in recent years by a series of episodes suggesting that important elements in Turkish society do not fundamentally share the values of liberal democracy that make the West “the West.”

This is not the place to dissect the accuracy or inaccuracy of perceptions on either side. I’ll just point out that, while in the past incoming administrations – American or Turkish – could point to the existence of a broad commonality of values and interests as reason for confidence in the relationship, the Obama administration may think twice before trying to make that case.

Single Issue Politics

I’ll conclude my review of structural factors that will affect U.S. – Turkish relations by returning to U.S. domestic politics, where the existence of single issue interest groups hostile to Turkey has for decades been a feature and an irritant in our bilateral relations.

The good news is that our new Administration, unlike its predecessors, may get a pass from the Greek lobby. That is in large measure a function of the far-sighted and occasionally courageous policies that Ankara has pursued over the past decade on the complex of issues relating to Greece and Cyprus.

The bad news is that the Armenian lobby is fully mobilized, highly motivated and in possession of unprecedentedly clear and unqualified commitments from leading members of the new Administration that the events of 1915 will be termed “genocide.” It is not clear at this juncture when the genocide issue will come to the agenda, or whether the venue will be the White House or Congress. But there is a very real prospect that this highly charged question could be a formative experience for Turkey with the new Administration.

Conjunctural Factors

That is a good transition to the second set of factors that will affect U.S. – Turkish relations, what I call conjunctural factors. What issues in the weeks and months ahead will give U.S. and Turkish leaders the opportunity to take one another’s measure? What are the prospects that these initial exchanges will go well?

Gaza

Let’s start with the crisis of the moment: Israel’s recent military operation in Gaza and its aftermath. It’s an apt point of departure, because it will amplify some concerns I’ve already expressed.

I don’t need to get into a discussion of whether Israel’s actions have been right or wrong to note that Turkey’s response highlights the dilemma that some in the U.S. see in Turkey’s more assertive regional diplomacy.

On the one hand Turkey appears behind the scenes to have been an active, creative and constructive contributor to negotiations leading to a cease fire.

On the other hand, some of the rhetoric here has, I fear, undermined Ankara’s hard-earned reputation for even-handedness. That has to be considered a loss as the Obama administration considers how – and with whom – to begin the process of re-engagement in pursuit of a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors.

Iran

The tensions I’ve just described could also affect the extent to which the new Obama administration and Turkey are able to work together on Washington’s most pressing strategic challenge – Iran.

The good news is that Obama and his team seem committed to shifting U.S. policy in a direction Turkey has long advocated. We will seek to engage Iran diplomatically. We will be creative in seeking to devise inducements for the Iranian leadership to adopt a more constructive approach. All this will be music to Turkish ears.

More problematic will be Washington’s likely argument that, to maximize prospects for successful diplomacy, Iran will need to see that the international community is more united than in the past in its willingness to impose a penalty for intransigence. In a word, more sanctions – sooner, or later.

The starting point for building international consensus on new sanctions has of course traditionally been the UN Security Council. What this means for Turkey as a new member of that body is that it will find it hard to argue, as in the past, that its position will conform to some ill-defined notion of “international legitimacy.” As a UNSC member Turkey will participate in the making of international legitimacy: there will be no place to hide. Any gaps between its approach and that of the Obama administration will stand out in high relief.

I would note in passing that, in this context, Turkey’s on-and-off pursuit of investments in Iran’s energy sector are also likely to acquire a higher and more problematic profile.

Energy

And I’ll use that as a transition to a more encouraging subject: energy. For those like myself who participated in the highly effective cooperation between Turkey and the U.S. on strategic energy diplomacy in the nineties, the past eight years represent a tragic lost opportunity. We are seeing the results today in stories of shivering Bulgarians, panicky West Europeans, and worried Turks.

The hour is late. But Russia’s test of wills with Ukraine this winter could be the impetus for a renewed commitment by the U.S., Turkey and Europe to overcome the petty and self-interested squabbling that has frustrated rapid movement on the Nabucco and other projects essential to the long-term energy security of the West. And that could return partnership on energy issues to a prominent place on the U.S. – Turkish bilateral agenda.

Europe

Another area where time and opportunity has been wasted in recent years is Europe. Here, too, there is plenty of room for finger-pointing. But here, too, the time may be right to move beyond that.

Developments over the past few years have demonstrated the risks to U.S. and European interests in allowing Turkey’s EU candidacy to drift. Washington ought to have no higher priority in its policy toward Turkey than to revive Turkey’s prospects for EU membership.

Why is that? I said earlier that, because of the kind of country Turkey is, Turkey’s success inevitably serves fundamental American interests. Let me put it more starkly: the irreducible U.S. interest in Turkey is that this unique, strategically located country not fail. A Turkey that is a member of the EU, or on track to becoming a member of the EU, cannot fail. It is that simple.

Whether Turkey gets into the EU is, ultimately, something for Turks and Europeans to work out. But the United States cannot be disinterested in the process. An Obama administration that will bring renewed credibility and a more collegial spirit to the task of rebuilding our trans-Atlantic relationships may be able to do more than its predecessor to facilitate a revival of Turkey’s EU candidacy.

Russia

Then there is Russia, an area where the Obama administration has signaled a more nuanced approach, and where vital Turkish and U.S. interests have traditionally intersected.

President Obama’s national security team is going to find that Turkish-Russian relations are not where they left them in 2000. Turkey’s trade relations with Russia have mushroomed in recent years to a volume several times that between the U.S. and Turkey. Despite efforts to diversify, Turkey remains overly dependent on Russian energy imports. And a quick review of foreign policy developments over the past few years will show that Turkish and Russian positions on issues like Iran, Iraq, Palestine and Black Sea security have converged.

Now, Turkey and Russia have a lot of history – much of it problematic. I’m not among those who believe Moscow will ever provide an alternative to strategic partnership with Washington or the West generally. But as the Obama administration re-engages on issues like energy security, or the security and independence of former Soviet territories like Georgia or the Ukraine, it will find, I suspect, that it cannot count on Ankara’s simply following the U.S. lead, as might have been the case in the past.

Iraq/Afghanistan

I’ve been speaking for quite a while now and have barely referred to Iraq, on which the U.S. – Turkish partnership stumbled so badly in 2003 and 2004. The reason for that is that, by and large, my sense is that the two sides are largely on the same page today as regards Iraq, and are likely to remain there.

There will be challenges. But I see no evidence that the Obama administration’s approach in Iraq will jeopardize Turkish interests there. And from Washington’s perspective, Turkey’s constructive diplomacy toward and in Iraq, and its contributions to its neighbor’s economic revitalization, cannot help but be seen as added value.

I believe Washington will also see Turkey as part of the solution as it refocuses American military resources on Afghanistan.

Turkish Internal Politics

A final factor I want to mention is Turkey’s internal politics. There are good reasons why democracies – and former Ambassadors -- as a general rule try hard not to become involved in or even to comment on the politics of other friendly, democratic countries.

That said, there are many in the U.S., including in the new administration, who believe failure to speak out more clearly on such developments as Turkey’s 2007 and 2008 constitutional crises risked outcomes that Washington would not have welcomed. It is also the case that Democratic administrations have often been more inclined than Republican to comment on internal developments in Turkey, particularly with respect to human rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law.

There is a lot going on in Turkey today. Much of it is obscure to outside observers. It is not clear where it will lead or whose interests will ultimately be served. But as events take their course, it may be that for the first time in years Turkey’s internal situation will be something Washington feels compelled to raise in private and talk about in public.

* * * * *

I have covered a lot of territory tonight.

I hope you will have taken from what I have said that there is some hard work ahead for both Washington and Ankara to get U.S. – Turkish relations out of the doldrums of the past few years.

Our 2008 elections were about change. There is no doubt that the change we saw January 20 is refreshing.

But changing Presidents doesn’t mean U.S. – Turkish relations default to 1999. Turkey, the U.S. and the world have changed in important ways since then. There are pitfalls and snares ahead that will trip up the unwary. For America, getting Turkey right will require focused, sustained, hands-on management at the highest levels of an Obama administration that takes office with a very full in-box. But the last eight years are a cautionary tale in the consequences of failing to make that investment. Let’s hope the new team in Washington is paying attention.

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Publication: YASED Conference - Istanbul, Turkey

The Future of Turkish-American Relations: Acting Together with a Common Vision - An Address by H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:30:00 -0500

Event Information

November 14, 2008
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

An Address by H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey

On November 14, the Center on the U.S. and Europe at Brookings welcomed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a public address on revitalizing Turkish-American relations. In his remarks, Mr. Erdogan discussed the common vision shared by the strategic allies in confronting global challenges and securing peace and stability in the Middle East.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Prime Minister of Turkey in March 2003, following the electoral success in 2002 of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In 2007 the AKP party was returned to power with a landslide victory in Turkey's parliamentary elections, winning 47% of votes. Previously Mr. Erdogan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1997. He was educated at Marmara University.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott introduced Mr. Erdogan, and .Brookings Turkey Project Director Omer Taspinar moderated a question and answer session with discussants Mark Parris, Brookings Visiting Fellow and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, and Daniel Benjamin, Director of the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

ErdoganSpeech

President-elect Obama and Turkey

Mark R. Parris — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0500

INTRODUCTION

As your Administration undertakes the Herculean task of restoring America's footing and leadership abroad, some countries will be able to help-or-hurt-more than others. Turkey has the potential to place high on either list.

Under your predecessor, US-Turkish relations have been chronically dysfunctional, punctuated by periodic near and real disasters. We have to do better. That will require prompt steps to correct conceptual and structural handicaps that have harmed our approach to Turkey for decades, but which have become acute in recent years.

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Mark R. Parris

Publication: Private View

Turkey, the Region and U.S.-Turkey Relations: Assessing the Challenges and Prospects

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 28, 2008
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EDT

Multi-Purpose Room
University of California Washington Center
1608 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

Turkey has weathered exceptionally turbulent times in recent years and continues to face serious domestic and foreign policy challenges. Following the so-called “e-coup” warning of a possible military intervention, civil-military tensions climaxed during the summer of 2007. A year later, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was nearly shut down by the Constitutional Court. The AKP's landslide electoral victory in July 2007 was followed by another crisis over the presidency. In addition, PKK extremist attacks have been sharply on the rise. How should the next U.S. administration manage Turkish-U.S. relations? Where is Turkish domestic politics going? What is Turkey's foreign policy outlook?

On October 28, the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe and the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research hosted a conference to examine Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy challenges and prospects. The conference featured a keynote address by Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, chief foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. After the keynote address, Ibrahim Kalin, founding director of SETA; Nonresident Fellow Omer Taspinar, director of the Turkey Project at Brookings; Visiting Fellow Mark Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey; and Talha Kose of George Mason University moderated a series of discussions featuring a distinguished group of Turkish and American experts, officials and scholars.

Participants

Panelists

Moderator: Ibrahim Kalin

SETA

Ahmet Davutoglu

Chief Advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Republic of Turkey

Moderator: Mark R. Parris

Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy

Cengiz Candar

Radikal (Turkey)

Ian Lesser

German Marshall Fund

Suat Kiniklioglu

Member of Turkish Parliament

Moderator: Talha Kose

George Mason University

Steven Cook

Council on Foreign Relations

Kemal Kirisci

Bogazici University and Carleton University

Taha Ozhan

SETA

Mustafa Akyol

Turkish Daily News

Bulent Ali Riza

Center for Strategic and International Studies

The Bush Legacy in U.S.-Turkish Relations

Mark R. Parris — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:00 -0400

ABSTRACT

American and Turkish leaders typically describe ties between the U.S. and Turkey as based on “common values and interests.” Yet given that the Bush administration’s relationship with Turkey has been marked by dysfunction and crisis, is that still true? A tendency to see Turkey as a function of Washington’s big idea of the moment, insensitivity to a broadening perception in Turkey of U.S. disregard for Turkish interests, inaction in the face of PKK terror, weak leadership on energy security, and schizophrenia toward Turkey’s internal politics have left U.S.–Turkish relations worse than when George W. Bush came to office. If U.S. and Turkish interests remain largely convergent at the strategic level, a more independent Turkish diplomacy will likely be part of the Bush legacy. As for “common values,” there is reason to hope that the real damage done to mutual perceptions is reversible.

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Mark R. Parris

Publication: Insight Turkey

U.S.-Turkish Relationship: What's Wrong with This Picture?

Mark R. Parris — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:00:00 -0400

Some months ago, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan came to Washington. As usual, he met with his counterpart, Condoleezza Rice. After their meeting, the two ministers came out and spoke in warm terms, as have all their recent predecessors, about the U.S. – Turkish strategic partnership, its importance and the common values and interests on which it rests. Hold that image.

Here’s another. Last fall, polling by the Pew Research Institute showed approval ratings for the U.S. in Turkey were in single digits. In July, Iran’s whacko President Mahmud Ahmadinijad visited Istanbul, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds, some of them chanting “death to America.” Iran, by the way, regularly clobbers us in popular opinion polling in Turkey.

What’s wrong with these pictures? If this relationship is so strategic, and so firmly founded on common interests and values, why is our image in Turkey so abysmal? Why is Iran more popular than we are?

I’d like to talk this evening about why Turkey is important to America, about how our relations have gone so wrong in recent years, and about what can be done about it, probably by the next Administration.

I. Turkey’s Importance

In simplest terms, Turkey is important to the United States for two reasons: where it sits; and what it is.

Where it sits is the easy part. And with an informed audience like this I can deal with it simply by asking you to think of the top ten really hot foreign policy stories of the past year.

Now consider how many of them were in places neighboring or near Turkey. Georgia probably tops the list, with all it implies for Ukraine and the (Turkic speaking) former Soviet states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iraq, where the good news of the past year remains hostage to solving pesky little details like the status of Kirkuk, a city Turks have said could be a casus belli. Iran, probably the least problematic border Turkey has had in the last few hundred years and one they’re not anxious to see riled by sanctions or military confrontations. The long-standing but still deadly complex of issues involving Israel and its Arab neighbors in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. Kosovo and the Balkans, whose experience Russia has used to justify its own actions in Georgia.

And so we come full circle geographically. And I think you see my point. There may be places as important to us on one or a few issues. But I can’t think of any place as important on so wide and overlapping a range of issues. And the issues involved are truly vital to our national interests. That’s why they make headlines.

As we saw just a few weeks ago, Turkey is a place you need to get over or through to get supplies to a Georgia, or to support our forces in Iraq. It’s a place you can’t do without to contain a resurgent Russia. It’s a place you need on your side if you want to isolate an Iran or Syria. It’s the only workable path to get the energy resources of the Caspian and Central Asia to world markets without going through Russia.

And usually, when we need to use or transit Turkey’s geography, we’re in a hurry. What we have found over and over is that it is always easier in such cases to work with Turkey than to work around Turkey.

So much for where Turkey sits. Turkey is also important to us because of what it is. It is, first, of all, big: in landmass, in population, in its economy. Size always matters. Especially when combined, as is the case for Turkey, with the right qualitative factors.

Here’s one. Most of the places I’ve just talked about, from southern Ukraine through the Caucasus, from Iraq to the Gaza strip, from Israel through the Balkans, were part of the Ottoman Empire. Turks know these places, their actors, their dynamics. They can talk with their leaders in ways we simply cannot. And so you find Turks today acting as mediators between Israel and Syria, between Russians and Georgians, between Syrians and Lebanese, between Iraqi Sunni and Shia Arabs; between Iran and the world.

That’s important and potentially valuable in terms of Western and U.S. interests. Because of course Turkey also happens to be a genuine, functioning democracy, a member of NATO and the OSCE, a candidate for membership in the EU, an active participant each year at Davos, and a poster child for the IMF and World Bank.

Oh, and its population is 99% Muslim.

And since 2002 it has been governed by a party which, in earlier incarnations, described itself as “Islamist.” The Justice and Development Party – or “AKP” as it’s known by its Turkish acronym, doesn’t use that terminology today. It was elected in 2002 and even more decisively a year ago as a centrist party committed to getting Turkey into the EU. But its roots are in a tradition of political Islam which is the issue we have had to deal with abroad since September 2001.

Put it all together and you get a pretty unique profile. In our post-September 11 world, the mere existence of a country like Turkey is an important fact. One that demonstrates in very concrete terms, and contrary to the claims of Muslim radicals, that there is no fundamental contradiction between Islam and the West, between Islam and globalization, between Islam and parliamentary democracy. As in the Cold War, when we faced a different kind of challenge, Turkey is a useful country to have on our side in what promises to be a long struggle against jihadi terrorism.

II. What’s Broke?

So how did we get to single digits? And are these guys really on our side?

Articles have in fact been written by some of my Brookings colleagues asking “Who lost Turkey.” Their answer is George W. Bush.

That’s a bit too pat. There is no question that Turks, like a lot of others around the world and particularly in Europe and the Middle East, were put off in the opening years of this Administration by its style and agenda, especially the decision to invade Iraq. With Turkey, of course, reactions were particularly strong because Iraq was literally closer to home. The decision to go to war, a bungled attempt to send our forces into Iraq through Turkey, and concern over the initial failure of U.S. occupation policies all had a corrosive effect on our bilateral relations. For the first time since World War II, Turks came seriously to question Washington’s strategic vision and leadership.

But there were factors on the Turkish side as well. And many were a function of the AKP’s coming to power in late 2002.

Now, Americans tend to make two mistakes in their assessment of the AKP. Some view it as Taliban. Some view it as just a slightly more religious version of the secular parties that ran Turkey for generations, with occasional help from the military.

Both are wrong. The Taliban comparison for the reasons I was describing a few minutes ago: to put it bluntly, you don’t see Taliban at Davos. But it is equally a mistake to underestimate or ignore what are real differences between AKP and its secular predecessors. And those differences have had an impact on our relations.

First, AKP was simply less experienced than the governments it replaced. Like anyone doing something for the first time, they have made mistakes: especially in their first years in power; especially with Washington.

That probably should not have been surprising, since AKP’s leaders had upon taking power had little direct experience in dealing with Americans. AKP’s predecessors had been educated or worked here, or had dealt with Americans throughout the Cold War. For the men who run AKP, their formative experiences with the U.S. were not so positive: specifically, they involved what they saw as our repeated acquiescence in suppression of their parties by Turkey’s military and secular institutions. There was simply not the same comfort level and instinct to look to the U.S. for leadership that had been there in the past.

There was also quite a different world view, not just in terms of where to draw the line between religious expression and state function at home, but in terms of how Turkey should engage abroad with countries sharing Turkey’s Ottoman and Muslim legacy.

AKP’s foreign policy architects, unlike their Kemalist predecessors, have seen in Turkey’s past the inspiration for a more activist diplomacy in the region. The mediator roles I was describing a moment ago reflect a conviction that Turkey can advance not only its own interest, but those of its Western allies, by active engagement with it neighbors.

And that is where the tensions with Washington have come. Because some of the parties with whom Turkey has sought to engage – Iran, Syria, Hamas, Sudan – have been parties that Washington would have prefered to isolate. Indeed, some observers have seen in AKP’s pursuit of so-called “strategic depth” an attempt to move Turkey away from its traditional ties to the U.S., the West and Israel in a more sinister direction. Labels often obscure more than they clarify, but certain Washington pundits have gone so far as to lump the AKP government in with a broad “Islamo-fascist” movement, along with actors like Al Queda and Taliban.

More seriously, there have been times during the last year when what I think were good faith efforts by the Bush Administration to avoid becoming enmeshed in Turkey’s internal politics have suggested some sympathy with such characterizations. This has, not surprisingly, done little to build trust between Washington and Ankara. It has no doubt contributed to perceptions in Turkey of American hostility or cynicism.

But by far the factor which has done most to cloud bilateral relations over the past decade has been America’s failure to respond to Turkish pleas for assistance in dealing with a mounting threat from Kurdish terrorists operating out of the mountains of northern Iraq.

Now, this is an issue with a complicated history. I have followed it for years, in and out of government. As best I can tell, there has never been a good reason why we failed to follow though on our declaratory policy that “there is no place in post-Saddam Iraq” for groups like the PKK – the terrorist organization at issue. As best I can tell, the main reason we did not respond was a bureaucratic one: the country asking us for help (Turkey) was the responsibility of those parts of our government responsible for Europe; while those with the means to do something about it were responsible for the Middle East and thought they had more pressing concerns – like not losing Iraq.

Whatever the cause, the result was years of bureaucratic deadlock and inaction, which looked to Ankara and the Turkish public like simple non-responsiveness. Hard as it is to believe, this led most Turks to conclude by last year, as Turkish casualties mounted, that our inaction was part of a considered plan to bleed and ultimately to divide Turkey in order to create an independent Kurdish state.

Now, I’m here to tell you that that kind of street rep will hurt your public approval ratings. While Turkish threats to invade Iraq to deal with the problem finally got us off the dime last winter, and while U.S. – Turkish cooperation against the PKK has finally kicked in, our relations suffered a self-inflicted wound that will take years to mend.

III. Getting it Right

It will also, realistically, have to await a new Administration.

In Turkey, as elsewhere, people have largely written off the Bush Administration, hoping only that it will not create any stark new facts – like a war with Iran – which they will have to deal with. Like a lot of other countries, the Turks heart leads them to like Obama; their head tells them it will be easier to deal with McCain. The fact is that we will get a bounce in Turkey, as in a lot of places, simply by presenting a new face to the world.

But the dismal record of the past few years offers lessons, if anyone is paying attention, on how to get this important relationship back on track. My recommendations would be the following:

First, the next Administration needs a proper, self-standing Turkey policy. The tendency in Washington is for the urgent to crowd out the important. In that environment, our relations with Turkey will always be hostage to the next crisis for which we need access to their territory, sea or air space – and right now! But that kind of crisis-driven approach could not be better calculated to reduce the likelihood we will get the kind of reliable cooperation we need over time.

Second, the starting point of any coherent Turkey policy will be clarity on the part of all concerned on what kind of country we have in mind when we talk about common values with Turkey. During Turkey’s 18- month Constitutional crisis over picking a new President and the possible closure of the AKP, U.S. policy was so excruciatingly even-handed as between AKP and its adversaries as to alienate all parties. Worse, by creating an aura of indifference it raised the likelihood that the clear choice of Turkey’s electorate would be excluded from politics. And that would have been a major setback for America’s interests.

For what is the irreducible American interest in Turkey? It is that it not fail. Think Pakistan on Turkey’s vital geography. We need not and should not associate ourselves with specific parties or politicians in Turkey. But we must leave no room for doubt that, barring clear evidence of hostile intent toward our interests, we will support and work with those who play by the rules and in whom the Turkish people place their trust.

Third, we need to get past the notion that AKP’s penchant for engaging its neighbors is evidence of hostility to our interests. The fact is that in the past four years Washington has ineluctably been drawn closer to Turkey’s approach – that is, toward engagement – than vice-versa. Since the Bush Administration has already legitimized the tendency to engage with problem nations in the region and in the world, my guess is that the next Administration will be less inclined to make this an issue. If they are smart, they will explore more seriously than their predecessors the degree to which Turkish efforts and unique added value in this part of the world can complement our approach.

Fourth, to overcome the systemic factors that have plagued the conduct of our relations with Ankara in recent years (and before that), the next Administration needs to end the disconnect between the parts of our government that deal with Europe and with the Middle East and Central Asia. Whether you do it with people or by creating a new senior-level position to manage the divide, we cannot afford a repeat of the PKK fiasco, which is simply the most acute symptom of a chronic malady.

Fifth, and a corollary of several of the points I’ve already made, our Turkey policy needs to be embodied in a formal agenda. To be more specific, for a country where so many important U.S. interests overlap, it is critical at the start of a new Administration to get them all on the table, to establish priorities, and to create a follow-up mechanism to keep the whole construct from being derailed by the first crisis. A formal policy review, conducted at the Cabinet level, and staffed thereafter by permanent interagency machinery should be a priority.

Sixth, and finally, this is a relationship that needs quality senior face-time, and lots of it. Turks are not unique in their tendency to do things not for countries or institutions but for people. Turks may be unique in terms of how many things we ask them to do. The next Administration has every interest in creating circumstances that make it easy for Ankara to say yes. That means investing, early on, at the level of the President, his Vice President, his Secretary of State and appropriate Cabinet officers, in developing close working relationships with their Turkish counterparts.

Yes, they will be busy. Yes there will be lots of competing demands. Yes, both the European and Middle Eastern hierarchies in our bureaucracies will have higher priorities on any given day. But as the next President and his team go about seeking to reestablish American credibility and leadership abroad, some countries will be able to help us – or hurt us – more than others. Turkey has the potential to score high on either list.

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Publication: Rochester Committee on Foreign Relations

Turkey’s Constitutional Court Decision on the Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:30:00 -0400

Event Information

August 6, 2008
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Potentially averting further political crisis, Turkey’s Constitutional Court recently struck down an attempt to outlaw the Justice and Development Party (AKP). This court case had been described by international media as a battle between the secular and devout sides of Turkey’s national “soul.” What does the decision imply for the future in terms of Turkey’s political stability, economic prospects and emergent regional diplomatic clout? What roles have the U.S. and Europe played in the outcome?

On August 6, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings hosted three of Turkey’s most astute political observers for a discussion of the court ruling and its implications. These experts on Turkish politics and society shared timely impressions of the initial impact in Turkey of the court’s historic ruling, a sense of where the country may be going in the period ahead, and thoughts on what the ruling may mean for Turkey’s relations with the United States and Europe. Brookings Visiting Fellow and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20080806_turkey

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Cagri Erhan

Vice President
Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies

Ibrahim Kalin

Founding Director
Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research

Murat Yetkin

Columnist, Radikal (Turkey)

America’s Presidential Elections and Implications for U.S.-Turkish Relations

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 2, 2008
2:00 PM - 7:00 PM EDT

The Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel

Istanbul, Turkey

On Monday, June 2 the Brookings Institution collaborated with TUSIAD (Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association) to host a conference on “America’s Presidential Elections and Implications for U.S.-Turkish Relations” at the Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel in Istanbul. During the panel discussions, a team of respected American and Turkish analysts considered factors that will determine next November’s elections for a new President of the United States, and how the various outcomes may affect the substance and dynamics of relations between the U.S. and Turkey beginning next January.

The conference began with introductory remarks by TUSIAD Board member Haluk Dincer and Brookings President Strobe Talbott. Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and current Brookings Visiting Fellow Mark Parris followed with a presentation on the stakes for US- Turkish Relations in America’s elections. Thomas Mann, Brookings Senior Fellow in Governance Studies, then made a presentation entitled “Handicapping the 2008 U.S. Presidential Race.” Following this overview of the elections system and the candidates, Richard Burt, Managing Director at McClarty Associates and Former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, and Philip Gordon, Brookings Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Former Director for Europe at the National Security Council, discussed the implications for Turkey of a Democratic or Republican victory in November. Professor Soli Ozel of Bilgi University presented the Turkish perspective on the American elections and responded to several points that were made by the American analysts.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

Turkey's Courts Should Respect the Will of the People

Mark R. Parris — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

You'd hardly know it from the muted reaction in Washington or the nonexistent press coverage, but a key U.S. ally and one of the Middle East's most important democracies is sliding inexorably toward crisis. Turkey's constitutional court is currently considering arguments for closing down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and banning its top leadership from politics for threatening the secular nature of the Turkish state.

The court's action can arguably be justified under the Turkish Constitution's proscription against political parties' violating "the principles of a democratic and secular republic." The language is vague, and the constitution is widely condemned in Turkey as an outmoded document dictated by the military a quarter century ago -- but there is a patina of compatibility here with the rule of law.

Nor can one overlook the behavior of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, chairman of the AKP, since his Islamic-rooted party's landslide victory last July. Contrary to his postelection commitment to be the prime minister of all Turkey's citizens, he has narrowed his circle of advisers, failed to follow through on promised economic and political reforms (including an overhaul of the constitution), and displayed a disturbing degree of paranoia toward Turkey's press and civil society. He has also allowed himself to be maneuvered by the nationalist opposition into a premature -- if not inevitable -- showdown over the right of religiously observant university women to wear headscarves on campus.

In short, Mr. Erdogan has squandered his substantial political capital of last summer, estranged himself from political and economic interests that supported him then, and fueled suspicions of a secret agenda to make Turkey a more Islamic place.

These factors may explain Washington's agonizingly balanced approach to the AKP case thus far. Administration figures typically avoid the subject. If pressed, they express a tortured commitment to both Turkish "democracy" and "secularism," and the hope that the issue will be resolved through established "institutions" (the court?) and in accordance with the Turkish electorate. Or as the head of the State Department's European Bureau has put it, "We don't take sides."

That's a cop-out. Here's why.

The notion that Turkey's "institutions" should resolve this matter presumes the constitutional court to be above politics. In fact, the court has shown a growing appetite for muscling into Turkey's partisan fray, notably when it solicited and then jumped at the opportunity last spring to change -- to AKP's disadvantage -- parliamentary goalposts for picking a new president. That ploy failed. But it left little doubt about the constitutional court's evenhandedness.

On what basis is the court considering closure of Turkey's only truly national party -- a party generally acknowledged to have given Turkey since 2002 its best governance in years, which less than a year ago received an unprecedented vote of confidence from Turkey's electorate, and enjoys the support of world financial markets? A compendium of anecdotes from the hostile press suggesting Mr. Erdogan and his colleagues intend to turn Turkey into an Islamic Republic. The case is so dubious it is hard to imagine that even the staunchest Kemalists take it at face value.

A more relevant consideration may be that the AKP's 2007 political gains create, for the first time in Turkey's modern history, a serious threat to the hegemony of elites who came to power with Turkey's first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s and '30s, and whose outlook has not much changed since. That outlook is encapsulated in a slogan from the days of Ataturks's Westernizing reforms: "For the people, despite the people." Revealingly, it is a view one still hears today, without irony, from those pressing the case against the AKP.

"Despite the people" may have been a justifiable approach as Ataturk sought to wrench an exhausted, defeated remnant of the Ottoman Empire into modernity after World War I. It ought to be an anachronism in the young, dynamic, globally connected Turkey of the 21st century. Turkey is a candidate member of the European Union and a country widely held up as the Muslim world's only credible democracy.

Turks, including members and supporters of the AKP, nonetheless seem increasingly to be resigned to the prospect that the party will be closed down and that its most effective leaders, including Mr. Erdogan, will be barred from affiliation with any successor for five years. But that won't be the end of the AKP or Mr. Erdogan. Based on past precedent, the party will likely emerge to dominate parliament under a new name. Mr. Erdogan will remain a key actor, if necessary from behind the scenes.

The consequences for Turkey are as grim as they are predictable: parliamentary and bureaucratic dysfunction as the case makes its way through the court (a process that could consume months); political churning and a greater likelihood of disruptive and polarizing new national elections; evaporation of foreign investor confidence and economic slowdown; undermining of Turkey's already fraught candidacy for admission to the EU; and the devaluing of its image and influence abroad. In short, a lost year, or more, for a country of enormous strategic importance and almost unlimited potential.

The loss will not be Turkey's alone. While some have sought by labeling the party "Islamist" to suggest its hostility to Western values, and thus to avoid a discussion of the merits of the case to close it down, the fact is that the AKP -- with all its warts -- is the closest thing to a liberal democratic party in Turkey today. None of the alternatives even come close. Yes, the AKP has made mistakes that have has raised questions about its ultimate intentions. And Turkey's voters ought to hold its leadership accountable at the ballot box. But the party's neutering would be a serious setback for democracy in a region where -- and at a moment in history when -- it matters greatly.

"Nothing" is often be the best thing to do or say, particularly when it involves an allied country's internal politics. But to suggest, as the Bush administration has come close to doing, that the U.S. is indifferent to the AKP's fate would be myopic. It is not carrying a special brief for Mr. Erdogan or his party to state clearly the fundamental incompatibility between "being Western" or "modern," as Ataturk urged Turks to be, and closing down political parties on the dubious grounds presented against the AKP.

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Publication: Wall Street Journal

U.S.-Turkish Relations: How Firm a Foundation?

Mark R. Parris — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

The following speech was given to the Economics Club in Memphis, TN.

A few weeks ago I participated in a seminar with the title, “The U.S. and Turkey: How Strong the Ties that Bind.” Here in the Bible Belt, people will recognize, as I did, the allusion to a venerable hymn, “Blessed Be the Tie.” It is, of course, a hymn we often sing at funerals. Maybe there was a subliminal message there. It seemed to me a less judgmental title might have come from another hymn: “How Firm a Foundation?”

In either case, the point then and now is that we are gathered here to discuss a relationship that in the past decade has been seen both dizzying highs and abysmal lows. Eight years ago last November Bill Clinton spent nearly a week in Turkey. Everywhere he went he was mobbed by adoring crowds. A common joke was that when he left office he could be elected Turkey’s next president in a landslide. By contrast, last September President Bush’s approval rating in Turkey was in single digits.

The question I’d like to address today is to what extent events of the past five or six years have permanently changed the way Turkey and the U.S. look at one another, and what it may mean for the next Administration.

To do that I need to review a bit of history. Why did U.S. – Turkish relations seem to work so well in the nineties? How did they go so wrong, so fast?

Paradigm I: the Nineties

With all due respect to Bill Clinton and the very capable Ambassadors he had in Ankara during the period, our success in the nineties was more a function of objective factors than diplomatic finesse.

Consider the context. The Cold War had ended. The New World Order had met its first test in throwing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. American military, economic and moral strength was a matter of universal recognition and – hard as it may be to recall today -- general acclaim. A new Europe, and, some thought, a new Middle East, were emerging.

All that made Turkey nervous. The end of the Cold War robbed it of its iconic role as the anchor for NATO’s southern flank. The breakup of the Soviet empire put at risk in places like Chechnya and Yugoslavia populations with ethnic and historic connections to Turkey. The first Gulf War had disrupted Turkey’s trade with Iraq and the Gulf, fueled terror within Turkey, and created a nightmare situation next-door: a quasi independent Kurdish statelet under U.S. protection. Turkey found itself at odds with most of its neighbors. Its economy was fragile and subject to recurrent crises. Its human rights reputation was tarnished. Europe was unresponsive to Turkey’s hopes of joining join former Warsaw Pact foes on the path to membership.

Turkey needed a new identity. Or at least a friend. Bill Clinton’s administration would eventually provide both.

It did so, fundamentally, because it came to realize that in the messier, more complex world that followed the Cold War, a lot of important new fault lines ran through or near Turkey. The Turks were pivotal on issues like drug smuggling, wmd proliferation, money laundering, terror. They were irreplaceable in containing Saddam Hussein. They shared our view on the need to protect at-risk Muslims, and were often willing to send troops to do it. They shared our vision of an East-West energy transportation corridor, and brought considerable diplomatic weight throughout the Turkic-speaking Caspian and Central Asia in pursuit of that vision. They valued NATO and were wary of alternative European defense schemes.

The result was that by the end of Clinton’s second term, both sides had self-consciously begun to think of one another as “strategic partners” – a formula Clinton himself endorsed during his visit and that Turks enthusiastically embraced.

“Strategic partnership” did not mean that Washington and Ankara agreed on everything. There were real differences throughout this period, notably on Iraq and on Turkey’s human rights record. But the perception of a general convergence of interests, and growing success in pursuing those interests, made it possible to manage even serious differences.

Paradigm II: Post 9/11

A very different paradigm has existed since at least late 2002. What happened?

It is tempting to argue that essentially what happened is that the Bush Administration screwed up relations with Turkey like it did most of our other important relationships around the world.

But it is a little too simple to lay all the blame at the feet of George W. Bush and his colleagues. Washington has made its share of mistakes over the past six years, mistakes of both commission and omission. But perhaps the Bush Administration’s biggest mistake was its failure to understand that after 2002 Turkey was becoming a different kind of partner than it had been in the nineties. That was basically a function of the coming to power late that year of a new government led by the Justice and Development or AK Party.

Washington at the time didn’t know quite what to make of the AKP. It is arguably still trying to figure it out. At issue was and is AKP’s past, and the difference that makes in the way its leadership looks at the U.S. and the world.

Some people call the AKP an “Islamist” party. AKP’s leaders vigorously reject that label. But the fact is that AKP was founded by members of a series of banned Islamist parties. And that made a difference in terms of how they looked at America. The men who run AKP – and they are all men -- had had little prior exposure to the U.S. before taking office. Indeed, some of them likely saw Washington as complicit in their periodic harassment by Turkey’s military and secular establishment. The empathy and easy rapport that past leaders like Turgut Ozal, Suleiman Demirel or Tansu Ciller had with America could no longer be taken for granted.

Nor was the AKP leadership inclined easily to assume the role of Washington’s junior partner. Indeed, they brought to the job a very different sense than their predecessors of Turkey’s foreign policy priorities, particularly in the Muslim world.

At the risk of oversimplification, Ataturk and his successors in founding the Republic basically turned their backs on Arabs and other former imperial subjects, whom they viewed as traitors and ingrates. They focused their energy on becoming Western.

The AKP, in contrast, saw Turkey’s imperial past and its predominantly Muslim population as assets: assets Turkey could exploit to become a more significant regional player. They have not walked away from the West. Indeed, AKP has arguably done more than any Turkish party to advance Turkey’s candidacy to become a member of the EU. But under AKP achievement of what its theoreticians called, “strategic depth,” principally in former Ottoman lands, became an organizing principle of Turkish foreign policy.

That has had consequences for U.S. – Turkish relations. It is basically true, as U.S. and Turkish spokespersons have reminded one another regularly during this period, that the two countries share “common values and interests.” They have both wanted to keep Iraq together and set it back on its feet. They have both wanted to keep Iran from getting the bomb and ending its support for terrorists. They have both wanted to see Israel achieve peace with all its neighbors. At the level of goals, the two countries by and large remain on the same page.

But that has not kept us from diverging, sometimes quite openly, on means. Erdogan and Bush have differed on whether to engage or isolate Rafsanjani, Bashir al Assad, Hamas, or Sudan. Washington has bristled over AKP leaders’ references to Israeli acts of “terror” against Lebanese or Palestinians. Ankara’s position on sanctions against Iran has consistently been closer to Russia’s than America’s. And in retrospect it seems clear that AKP’s world view – even allowing for inexperience – was a factor in the watershed March 1, 2003 failure to let U.S. forces invade Iraq through Turkey.

It’s important to note that AKP was not alone in Turkey in its more wary view of Washington. As Turkey’s ruling party, in fact, it has had a strong interest in minimizing differences with Washington and by and large has done so. There is no question that Turkey’s opposition parties have consistently been more strident in their criticism of America than the AKP.

But if you put the pieces together, what do you get? An American administration with a distinctive style and an agenda that would have been problematic for any Turkish political leadership. A new Turkish leadership disinclined by background and world view simply to follow Washington’s lead. Growing disenchantment toward America among Turkey’s secular establishment. Rough spots were inevitable. They were compounded as popular opinion on both sides came to sensationalize and magnify differences that emerged.

The PKK

That said, I think it is unlikely U.S. – Turkish relations would have deteriorated so dramatically in the absence of what I think has proven to be a defining issue -- the problem of terrorism by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from safe-havens in northern Iraq.

It is a complicated issue with a lot of history. But the nub of the matter is that, despite its public declarations going back to 2003 that “there is no place in post-Saddam Iraq” for terrorist groups like the PKK, the U.S. for too long did nothing to back up those words. As their casualties mounted, a majority of Turks came to believe that Washington was secretly backing the PKK, aiming to break up not only Iraq but Turkey in order to create a self-standing Kurdish satellite state.

Eventually Turkish armed forces began assembling along the Iraqi border and Turkish generals and politicians began to compete with one another in affirming that Turkey would deal unilaterally with the PKK if America could or would not. When the PKK carried out a series of spectacular operations in fall, 2007, a major cross border operation looked imminent.

The prospect of Turkish intervention finally raised the PKK issue in Washington from the bureaucratic trench warfare in which it had been mired for years to the adult policy level.

The matter came to a head in a meeting last November 5 at the White House between Prime Minister Erdogan and and President Bush. It was a turning point. Bush declared the PKK a “common enemy” of the U.S., Turkey and Iraq. And this time Washington followed through. Turkey immediately began to receive actionable intelligence on the PKK. In a matter of weeks the Turkish air force began to act on that intelligence. PKK targets in northern Iraq were repeatedly bombed, without objections from Washington. And of course Turkish forces have since demonstrated that they can also use ground forces against the PKK in northern Iraq within certain limits.

The impact on the tone and dynamics of U.S. – Turkish relations has been dramatic. As the first bombs landed in northern Iraq, popular opinion in Turkey turned on a dime: in late January, some polls had U.S. approval ratings in the high thirties. When newly selected President Abdullah Gul visited Washington that month, “strategic partnership” was back … at least rhetorically.

Looking Ahead

The question is whether that phrase is of any use as a description of how the relationship actually works today, or may in the future. As we move out of the Bush era, will the paradigm of the nineties, or the post 9/11 paradigm, prove the more apt?

The correct answer, of course, is “neither,” since every epoch has its own logic and forms. But I hope our review of the two periods sheds some light on the constants of U.S. - Turkish relations, on some variables that can affect how the relationship functions, and on how policy and decision-makers on both sides can maximize their chances of getting it right in the future. Here are the conclusions I draw.

1. While the quality of our partnership may wax or wane, the Turkish-American relationship is and will remain “strategic” in terms of its importance to each side. For America that remains fundamentally -- but not exclusively -- a function of location: where Turkey sits. As I’ve put it elsewhere, so long as America retains the vital interests in does in Turkey’s neighborhood, so long as we are doing in that region what we are trying to do today and have been doing with varying degrees of intensity since the Cold War ended, it is a simple matter of geography and physics that it will always be easier work with Turkey than around Turkey.

As for Turkey, the ability to interact with and influence the super-power that has moved in next door and that seems likely to remain active in the neighborhood is something to which even a government not hard-wired to agree with Washington on all issues must assign strategic importance.

2. The quality of our partnership WILL be different from the halcyon days of the nineties or the cold war era that preceded them. That is partially a function of changes in the reality and perception of American power and influence in the region and in the world. The “brand” is not what it used to be. American military, economic and soft power do not awe as they once did. Meanwhile the quantum leap in American involvement in areas that Turkey defines as its own “strategic depth” has multiplied the number of actors and issues on which U.S. and Turkish instincts, if not necessarily interests, may differ.

Washington learned on March 1, 2003 that it cannot count on having its way in Ankara simply by pushing the old buttons. Turkey’s AKP governments have demonstrated since that, while they will give due weight to American concerns, they will make their own decisions on both strategy and tactics. Whatever the roots of this new self-confidence, it suggests bilateral cooperation will, at least conceptually, be more than in the past a partnership of equals.

3. The corollary of this different kind of partnership is that it will require, to be successful, more and more systematic high-level attention, especially on the American side. Most of the crises in U.S. – Turkish relations over the past six years were avoidable. The proof of that is that they were so easily fixable. On at least three occasions serious and mounting bilateral tensions were relieved by the timely, personal intervention of Secretary of State Rice and/or President Bush. In each case, the crisis averted was less the result of some new development than of months of accumulated resentment stemming from too low a level of day-to-day management.

In Washington the urgent will always claim priority over the important. The natural tendency of bureaucracy will always be to deadlock. Turkey’s relative stability and broadly convergent strategic vision with our own make it easy for Washington to ignore … until it cannot be ignored. Whoever may end up in the Oval Office or State Department next year, early, sustained, high-level engagement with Turkey’s leaders will spare our new leadership some white-knuckle moments, most of them unnecessary.

4. The U.S. – Turkish relationship is essentially an opportunistic one. That is not a criticism. It is an acknowledgement that, given the geographic distance separating us, the absence of a common history, our chronically under-developed economic relations, and, at least in America, the existence of some powerful, hostile lobbies, we are not “natural” partners.

U.S. - Turkish relations have worked best when they have been grounded in concrete interests for both sides, and when leaders on both sides have been able to point to concrete benefits arising from our cooperation. That, in a nutshell, is what has been missing in recent years. Neither Bush nor Erdogan has been able to stand up in front of his people and tell them what they are getting from “strategic partnership.”

Worse, in Erdogan’s case, he’s been unable until very recently to describe what Washington has done to stop the PKK from killing his people. An Administration that famously declared “you are either for us or against us” should have understood far sooner than it did that there is no room for ambiguity when people are dying. When something that basic isn’t right, it is hard to get anything else right.

5. The other side of that coin is that, if the basics are right, and if Washington is paying attention, there is in U.S. – Turkish relations today real potential for gains in a number of areas of importance to both sides. The last six years have seen repeated missed opportunities on issues like energy diplomacy. But the relationship will need to move beyond the episodic, crisis-driven dynamics of the recent past to exploit them.

* * * * *

So, we return to our point of departure. How firm is the foundation of U.S. – Turkish relations as the Bush era draws to a close? The evidence of the past decade suggests it remains more than capable of supporting an ambitious agenda of strategic cooperation on issues of lasting importance to both countries. But it also suggests that in the absence of informed, engaged leadership from the top, it will remain susceptible to erosion and sometimes dramatic dysfunction.

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Publication: The Economics Club of Memphis

Recent Developments in Turkey’s Economy

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:00:00 -0400

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April 11, 2008
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

On April 11, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings welcomed Turkish Minister of State Mehmet Simsek for an address on the Turkish economy.

In the years since its 2001 crisis, Turkey's economy has undergone a period of exemplary recovery and growth with its GDP rising an average of more than 7 percent from 2002 annually. However, current insecurity in the world’s financial markets poses new challenges to Turkey’s economy and its position as a major emerging market. How will Turkey weather the global economic downturn and the rise in political uncertainty at home? What are the latest developments on Turkey’s path to European Union accession? Minister Simsek addressed these and other issues in a discussion of Turkey’s economy in light of recent events.

Mehmet Simsek was elected to the Turkish Parliament in July 2007 and was appointed as the State Minister in Charge of the Economy in August of that year. Prior to his career in politics, Mr. Simsek was the Chief of Merrill Lynch’s Middle East and Africa Economic/Strategic Research Department for seven years based in London. He also served as Senior Economist and Bank Analyst for Deutsche-Bender Securities from 1998 to 2000. In other previous positions, Mr. Simsek worked for UBS Securities in New York and as a Senior Economist at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.

Brookings Visiting Fellow and former Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. After the program, the Turkish minister of state took audience questions.

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Mehmet Simsek

Turkish State Minister in Charge of the Economy

Back to the Future: U.S.-Turkish Relations after the Bush Presidency

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:30:00 -0500

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January 31, 2008
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EST

Room 1026/28
Service Employees International Union Building
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

The Bush years arguably have not been the best of times for America’s decades-long relationship with Turkey. A much-ballyhooed strategic partnership unraveled in March 2003 when Turkey’s parliament failed to authorize the U.S. to invade Iraq from Turkish soil. The Bush Administration’s approval ratings in Turkey later plummeted to single digits. In public opinion polls, Turks routinely came to identify the United States as Turkey’s greatest security threat, even as President Abdullah Gul came to Washington on January 8 for the first official visit by a Turkish head of state in a dozen years for a meeting with White House officials. What can the next Administration do to get on the right track with a partner whose enduring importance to U.S. has been convincingly reaffirmed by the Bush experience?

On January 31, Brookings hosted its final panel discussion with some leading Turkish experts to assess the Bush Administration’s impact on U.S.-Turkish relations, and what lessons can be drawn from this often tumultuous period. Speakers included two members of Turkish Parliament: former Ambassador Gunduz Aktan (MHP) and Dr. Suat Kiniklioglu (AKP); and former Turkish Foreign Minister Emre Gonensay. Mark R. Parris, director of the Turkey 2007 Project and former ambassador to Turkey, moderated. Turkey 2007 has been organized in partnership with TUSIAD, the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association.

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Ambassador (ret.) Gunduz Aktan

Member of Turkish Parliament, National Movement Party (MHP)

Dr. Emre Gonensay

Former Foreign Minister of Turkey

Dr. Suat Kiniklioglu

Member of Turkish Parliament, Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Q&A on Mounting Tensions between Turkey and the Kurds

Mark R. Parris — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:00:00 -0400

Turkish troops and substantial air and armor forces are poised on the Turkey-Iraq border to defend against what Turkey calls terrorist attacks from Kurdish rebels. As tensions and the body count mount, Turkey is looking to the U.S. for action. Mark Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, addressed the crisis:

"This is not an easy proposition from a military standpoint—the terrain is very difficult, the enemy is very elusive, they can see them coming, so the Turks will have to consider how to do this in a militarily significant way. They do have a serious and growing terrorism problem. There have been 30 Turks—civilian and military—killed in the last couple of weeks. It does have an American dimension in that the Turks feel their ally—the United States—should help them get a handle on this problem since we, in their view, are controlling much of Iraq.

"Bottom line, I guess is that Prime Minister Erdogan and his military chiefs have some difficult decisions. They’ll have to weigh carefully what they do on this issue but their country is expecting them to take concrete steps to deal with a terrorism problem that the united States, in their view, has not done an adequate job of dealing with by ourselves."

Video

Turkey Defends against Kurdish Attacks

Last Chance for U.S.-Turkish Relations?

Mark R. Parris — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:00:00 -0400

Two meetings during the next week will likely define U.S.-Turkish relations for the rest of George W. Bush’s presidency.

Condoleezza Rice will be in Turkey Friday and Saturday to meet with senior Turkish officials and to attend a conference of Iraq’s neighbors. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan will travel to Washington over the weekend for a Monday meeting with President Bush. Rice’s main task is presumably to set up a successful outcome for the Oval Office event.

It won’t be easy. America’s fifty-plus year strategic partnership with Turkey has been in free-fall since early 2003. While Erdogan’s government has contributed the occasional sin of commission or omission to the process, it has by and large found ways to support U.S. policy on issues we really care about: Iraq, Iran, Arab-Israeli relations, energy.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Washington. The Bush Administration has periodically (most recently in a September speech by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns at the Atlantic Council) “talked the talk” about Turkey’s importance and the advantages of strategic partnership. But it has simply not delivered on matters of greatest importance to Turkey.

Since 2004, when the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) resumed armed violence against Turkey from sanctuaries in northern Iraq, ending that threat has been at the top of Turkey’s list. Turks not unreasonably expected that a Bush Administration that had declared war on terror, that had announced in 2003 that “there was no place in post-Saddam Iraq” for groups like the PKK, and that had made clear it wanted Turkish troops to stay on their side of the border, would find ways to do so, or to help Turkey do so. What they have seen instead is a “slow roll”: a series of “trilateral initiatives” to bring Iraqi, Turkish and U.S. authorities together to discuss the problem. None have resulted in any concrete actions against the PKK. Indeed, the terrorists in recent months have escalated the tempo and scope of their operations.

The result in Turkey (accelerated by gratuitous slaps like last month’s abortive attempt in the House of Representatives to pass an “Armenian genocide” resolution) has been a hemorrhaging of trust in and support for the United States. America’s public approval rating stood at a sobering 9 percent before the Armenian resolution was approved in committee. Our failure to act against the PKK has caused many Turks to conclude we are actually backing it: mourners at the funerals of soldiers killed in recent terrorist attacks have conjoined “PKK” and “USA” in their slogans.

Thus Secretary Rice arrives in Ankara with 100,000 Turkish troops and substantial air and armor forces poised on the Turkish-Iraq border. The irony is that neither Turkey’s political nor military leadership – for different reasons – wants to pull the trigger. That is why Prime Minister Erdogan agreed after the most recent and serious PKK attack two weeks ago to give the U.S. “a few days” to deal with the matter.

Mr. Erdogan and his colleagues expect to hear from the Secretary what Washington is prepared to do. They have, in the meantime, set the bar pretty high: closing the PKK’s camps; arresting its leaders and handing them over to Turkey. Nor have they been impressed by reactions on the Iraqi side of the border. Iraqi Kurdish leaders have been dismissive or provocative; central government authorities unconvincing. And Ankara has long since discounted moves like closing PKK offices (which soon re-open) or announcements of ceasefires (just when the winter is closing down operations).

It is frankly hard to see, given the depth of mistrust that Washington’s temporizing on the PKK issue has generated in Turkey, what Ms. Rice will be able to say to prepare the ground for a civil, much less positive, Bush-Erdogan meeting. Short of an outright commitment to take direct action against PKK camps (possibly with Turkish participation), the Secretary will likely find her interlocutors skeptical that the quite remarkable restraint they have displayed over three years of mounting terror should be extended.

This suggests a fairly stark prognosis for next Monday’s meeting. If Erdogan hears from Bush credible assurances that Washington is finally prepared to act on its designation of the PKK as a terrorist organization (and if Washington acts on those assurances in a timely manner), the Administration will likely be able to patch up the vessel of U.S.-Turkish relations enough to keep it afloat for the next 14 months. If he does not, given the pressures he is under in Turkey to “do something” about the PKK, and pervasive revulsion there against a partner so discriminating in its choice of terrorists, the Prime Minister will have to draw conclusions. That will almost certainly mean Turkish military intervention of some sort in northern Iraq before the snow falls. It could also mean that putting U.S.-Turkish strategic cooperation back on solid footings will wait until the Oval Office has a new occupant.

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Turkey Lashes Out at U.S. Lawmakers for Armenian 'Genocide' Measure

Mark R. Parris — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:00:00 -0400

MARGARET WARNER, host: Mr. Ambassador, why has Turkey reacted so sharply to this resolution, which, as the congressman says, was not aimed at what Turkey is today, modern Turkey, which wasn't even a country then?

MARK PARRIS, Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey: I think, inevitably, criticism is in the eyes of the beholder. And you visited Turkey. You visited Turkey, as well. I don't think that anybody who's ever visited Turkey can be in any doubt that Turks, at all levels, of all levels of education and all parts of the country, view this kind of a resolution as criticism and, frankly, as interference in their own responsibility for coming to terms with their own history.

There are a lot of Turks who recognize and, frankly, admit -- and use words like "genocide" -- that this is a part of their history that they've got to come to terms with. I don't know any of them who believe that this will assist that discussion going forward or make it easier for them to deal with neighboring Armenia.

All of them believe this will be a major setback, because it is perceived as a major insult to Turkish credibility, honor by a long-standing ally. So why do they feel this way? They're human beings; they know something terrible happened.

At some level, I'm sure that they've recognized that that's going to have to be dealt with. But they don't appreciate third parties coming in and legislating the means by which they should reconcile themselves with their own history and with their neighbors.

Read the full transcript

Authors

Mark R. Parris

Publication: PBS

Regional Challenges to Post-Election Turkey

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 11, 2007
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

With a newly elected president and government, Turkey faces many regional challenges that will test the instincts and skill of its new leadership. Will U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq accommodate or exacerbate Ankara’s long-standing conflict with the Kurds?

Will the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government associate itself with American plans to ramp up pressure on Iran? In a period of rising tension, can Turkey reconcile its decade-long security relationship with Israel with a commitment to engaging actors like Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah? And to what extent can the Bush Administration—laboring under single digit approval ratings in Turkey—influence Ankara’s choices?

Brookings hosted a panel discussion with some of Turkey’s leading foreign policy analysts to discuss the regional challenges to a post-election Turkey. Experts included Bulent Aras, professor, Isik University in Sile; Mustafa Aydin, professor, TOBB University in Ankara; and Semih Idiz, columnist for the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet. Mark R. Parris, visiting fellow and former ambassador to Turkey, moderated.

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Bulent Aras

Professor, Isik University, Sile

Mustafa Aydin

Professor, TOBB University, Ankara

Semih Idiz

Columnist, Milliyet

Moving Forward: Interpreting Turkey's July 22 Election

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

July 31, 2007
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Room 1026/28
Service Employees International Union
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

On July 31, Brookings Turkey 2007 Project hosted a briefing with Dr. Soli Ozel on the results of the elections and its implications. Dr. Ozel, a member of the Department of Political Science of Istanbul's Bilgi University, is one of Turkey's most respected analysts. Mark R. Parris, director of the Turkey 2007 Project and former ambassador to Turkey, moderated.

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Dr. Soli Ozel

Bilgi University

Brookings: Experts - Mark R. Parris

Turkey, Russia and Regional Energy Strategies

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U.S.-Turkish Relations: A Historic Era?

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Obama Sees Turkey's Influence and Value

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Prospect for U.S.-Turkish Relations in the Obama Era

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The Future of Turkish-American Relations: Acting Together with a Common Vision - An Address by H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey

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President-elect Obama and Turkey

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Turkey, the Region and U.S.-Turkey Relations: Assessing the Challenges and Prospects

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The Bush Legacy in U.S.-Turkish Relations

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U.S.-Turkish Relationship: What's Wrong with This Picture?

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Turkey’s Constitutional Court Decision on the Justice and Development Party (AKP)

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America’s Presidential Elections and Implications for U.S.-Turkish Relations

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Turkey's Courts Should Respect the Will of the People

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U.S.-Turkish Relations: How Firm a Foundation?

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Recent Developments in Turkey’s Economy

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Back to the Future: U.S.-Turkish Relations after the Bush Presidency

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Q&A on Mounting Tensions between Turkey and the Kurds

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Last Chance for U.S.-Turkish Relations?

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Turkey Lashes Out at U.S. Lawmakers for Armenian 'Genocide' Measure

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Regional Challenges to Post-Election Turkey

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Moving Forward: Interpreting Turkey's July 22 Election

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