Klaus Jurgens

After the Summer 2023 Issue on the Century of Türkiye was released, Insight Turkey organized an online where experts discussed Turkish foreign policy and bilateral relations. As the Insight Turkey team, we hope that the panel's comments are informative and provide a better knowledge of the issues at hand. A video of the entire panel session is available on our YouTube channel

Analyzing modern Türkiye’s foreign policy is the perfect case study of how, over time, a nation-state can completely restructure its approach to engaging with the outside world. Yet this analysis does not aim to propose an extended or complete listing of individual countries’ relations; on the contrary, it basically tries to suggest what was the catalyst when measurable change occurred for the first time. In brief, Türkiye progressed from promoting splendid isolation during the past millennium to becoming a fully integrated and often trend-setting international actor in just over two decades. Hence, determining the actual catalyst for change, which according to the author is not just an election victory but also a much more profound paradigm shift in elected officials’ attitudes towards the wider world, is this contribution’s major aim. After discussing the analytical differences between international relations on the one hand and foreign policies on the other and focusing on the electorate as a key contributor and beneficiary of and from proactive foreign policies, the piece proposes a number of key examples to come up with a tangible way to measure foreign policy success. At the same time, the question is put forward in which context there might be even more to expect from Ankara and its constant desire to further expand on an already impressively positive global image. Whether or not foreign policies are an integral part of Türkiye’s 100-year strategy and thus become a focus of Türkiye the Brand serves as the concluding reflection.

Deliberately Misunderstanding Turkey 101 – a new hot pick in European journalism studies? Has fair and objective mainstream reporting about Turkey become extinct? After the Gezi Park protests 2013 –which the author labels ‘the failed park coup’– via a real military coup attempt in 2016 and the “Yes” vote in the April 2017 constitutional referendum, Turkish news reported in Europe is ever more biased. The article presents examples of recent and deliberate misrepresentation of facts about Turkey and aims to understand underlying negative currents in Europe’s political classes.