TURKISH STUDIES

The world is witnessing in slow-motion a second Iran in the making,less violent and dramatic, more sophisticated and potentially more enduring.

By Daniel Pipes
(DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2020 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

Copyright: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/8-policy-recommendations-dealing-%E2%80%98new%E2%80%99-turkey-146377

From 2002, when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party reached power, until about 2016, a debate raged among Turkey-watchers in the United States: Is Ankara still an ally?

Actually, due to nostalgia, that debate dragged on long after it was obvious that Turkey no longer was an ally. That issue, happily, is now closed; NATO membership notwithstanding, nobody seriously makes this claim anymore. Read more

Copyright:https://almarsad.co/en/2019/12/30/statement-of-the-alliance-of-the-libyan-national-gatherings-on-turkish-threats-to-deploy-troops-in-libyan-territory/ December 30, 2019

Published at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 1 January 2020.

The Alliance of the Libyan National Gatherings issued a statement on Monday on the threats made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his determination to deploy Turkish troops on the Libyan territory. The Alliance includes leading civil society organizations, national parties, human rights associations, officials, diplomats, writers, researchers, and academics from across Libya. Read more

Shaul Shay
(Senior research fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzeliya (IDC) and former Deputy Head of Israel National Security Council)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 22 September 2019

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on September 4, 2019, it was unacceptable for nuclear-armed states to forbid Ankara from obtaining its own nuclear weapons, but did not say whether Turkey had plans to obtain them.
Erdogan spoke at a ceremony marking the hundredth anniversary of Turkish independence in Sivas, the birthplace of Turkish resistance against foreign occupation...Read more

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 16 Issue: 80 May 31, 2019

John C. K. Daly
(Eurasian foreign affairs and defense policy expert for The Jamestown Foundation and a non-resident fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington DC.)

Copyright: https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-fumes-as-greece-offers-use-of-eastern-aegean-islands-to-nato-us/

Relations between Turkey and Greece are the most fractious of any pair of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 29 member countries. Disputes range from contested offshore hydrocarbon exploration to Athens granting political refugee status to two of eight Turkish officers who fled to Greece after the failed July 2016 coup attempt (Hürriyet Daily News, May 24, 2018). Now, Turkey is protesting Greece’s activities off its Aegean coast. On May 12, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy stated that Turkey claims Greece does not respect the demilitarized status of its islands in the eastern Aegean, adding that NATO warships operating in the Aegean should not use Greek ports there for visits and refueling (Mfa.gov.tr, May 12, 2019). Aksoy’s concerns mask a broader anxiety in Ankara that NATO and the United States may be planning to deepen their military presence in the eastern Mediterranean to include more bases in Greece and its Aegean islands. Read more

Max Hoffman
(Associate Director, National Security and International Policy at Center for American Progress, USA)

Copyright: Center for American Progress, USA (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2019/03/21/467518/responding-turkeys-purchase-russias-s-400-missile-system/) posted at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 24 March 2019.

The United States and Turkey have been at odds for at least six years, driven by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s descent into autocracy; his assertive brand of Turkish nationalism and anti-American rhetoric; and repeated clashes between the two nations over how to handle the Syrian civil war.1 This prolonged crisis in relations between the two NATO allies is now entering a new, decisive phase. Read more

Nickolaos Mavromates
(RIEAS Research Associate and Historian based in USA)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 27 June 2018

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

The aftermath of the Turkish combined parliamentarian and presidential elections showed that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is too strong to be defeated by the opposing amalgamation of Turkey's political parties. Kemalists under the banner of CHP and neo-nationalist kemalists under the female leadership of Meral Akşener's İYİ Party lack alike the political stimulus to defeat the champion of political Islam in Turkey. One that is represented by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his full pledged marriage with Turkey's extreme nationalistic MHP party. The reasons are many but above all the majority of Turkey’s populace embrace in one way of another AKP's and MHP's nationalistic agendas along with the reemergence of their Islamic identity that was suppressed by the previous Secular Kemalist administrations. Forces that were unleashed and got legitimized under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. ..Read more