• Editor's Note Volume 15 No 2

    İHSAN DAĞI

    On march 21, almost one million Kurds gathered in Diyarbakir to celebrate the Kurdish New Year, Newroz and listened to the message of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed PKK. In the midst of the cheers and applauses, Ocalan declared that the era of armed struggle for the Kurds ended and the PKK would lay down its arms.

  • Turkey’s Kurdish Question and the Peace Process

    YILMAZ ENSAROĞLU

    Turkey currently is witnessing a series of events that are most likely to go down in history as truly important milestones. The country is attempting to tackle the age-old Kurdish question. Thus far, the peace process has given rise to more hope than ever.

  • The AK Party and the Evolution of Turkish Political Islam’s Foreign Policy

    GALİP DALAY and DOV FRIEDMAN

    Turkish foreign policy under the AK Party government has long drawn scrutiny from a wide range of analysts. The Syrian uprising has raised the intensity, variance, and rapid change of such analysis.

  • The “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine: Revived in Libya, Buried in Syria

    MOHAMMED NURUZZAMAN

    Proponents of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, commonly referred to as R2P, claim that it came of age with NATO’s successful military intervention to protect the civilian population in Libya.

  • The Limits of Norm Promotion: The EU in Egypt and Israel/Palestine

    E. LAZARROU, M. GIANNIOU and G. TSOUPARAS

    Policy implications aside, assessing the EU’s involvement in the Mediterranean region necessitates a reconsideration of the impact and limits of the so-called ‘normative power’ upon which its approach has been based, implicitly or explicitly.

  • “The New Geopolitics of North Africa: Turkey and Libya”

    On April 7, a panel titled “The new geopolitics of Turkey and Libya” was organized by Insight Turkey in Tripoli, Libya. Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay and President Muhammad Yusuf Al-Magarif of the General National Congress of Libya delivered speeches at the panel in which ‘political and social transformation’ and ‘foreign policy and constitution making’ in Libya and Turkey were evaluated in two sessions.


Commentary
Turkey and the European Union: 2014 and Beyond

Joost Lagendijk

It seems likely that in 2013 Turkey and the EU will restart technical negotiations on one or more chapters. A real breakthrough, however, can only be expected in 2014, after the German elections and after the EU has regained the confidence that the current euro crisis can be overcome...

[ Read more ]

Commentary
New Peace Talks in Turkey: Opportunities and Challenges in Conflict Resolution

Ana Villellas

The restart of peace talks between the Government and the PKK has brought renewed optimism about the possibility to settle a nearly three-decade conflict, one of the oldest ongoing armed conflicts in the world and one with a major impact on neighbouring countries...

[ Read more ]

Commentary
Turgut Özal Twenty Years After: The Man and the Politician

Cengiz Çandar

Whether Turgut Özal was a good politician remains up for debate. However, there is no question that he indeed was (and is) a significant historical persona. He guided his country into the twenty-first century. When Özal suddenly passed away in 1993...

[ Read More ]

Article
Egypt’s Democratic Experiment: Challenges to a Positive Trajectory

Maha Azzam

As Egypt charts a path to democracy, it confronts the legacy of 60 years of dictatorship. President Morsi faces an ongoing power struggle with state institutions, including the judiciary, that are resistant to change...

Read More ]

Article
Islam, Conservatism, and Democracy in Turkey: Comparing Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Metin Heper

In the absence of a politically influential aristocracy and the entrepreneurial middle class, the political and economic transformations in Republican Turkey have been the handiwork of the political elites...

Read More ]

Article
Identity, Narrative and Frames: Assessing Turkey’s Kurdish Initiatives

Johanna Nykanen

In 2009 the Turkish government launched a novel initiative to tackle the Kurdish question. The initiative soon ran into deadlock, only to be untangled towards the end of 2012 when a new policy was announced...

Read More ]

EVENT
“The New Geopolitics of North Africa: Turkey and Libya”

SUNDAY, APRIL 07, 2013

On April 7, a panel titled “The new geopolitics of Turkey and Libya” was organized by Insight Turkey in Tripoli, Libya. Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay and President Muhammad Yusuf Al-Magarif of the General National Congress of Libya delivered speeches at the panel in which ‘political and social transformation’ and ‘foreign policy and constitution making’ in Libya and Turkey were evaluated in two sessions...

Read More ]

EVENT
IInsight Turkey 3rd Annual Conference

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

Insight Turkey held its first annual conference titled “Debating the New Turkey” in Washington DC and its second annual conference titled “Debating the New Middle East” in Cairo last year. This year Insight Turkey 3rd Annual Conference titled ‘‘Turkey and Europe: Drifting Apart?” will be held in Brussels on March 25, 2013. The Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin will attend the conference as a keynote speaker...

Read More ]

EVENT
Insight Turkey Debate V: Regional and Global Energy Security: Turkey’s Role

THURSDAY, MARCH 07, 2013

SETA Foundation hosted a debate organized by Insight Turkey, a peer-reviewed quarterly in circulation since 1999, and entitled Regional and Global Energy Security: Turkey’s Role with the participation of the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources HE Taner Yıldız, CEO of SOCAR Turkey Kenan Yavuz and BP Turkey Country President Bud Fackrell...

Read More ]