By Micha’el Tanchum

April 22, 2019

Turkey's taking delivery of the Russian S-400 air and missile defense system in July 2019 is a momentous strategic step. It reflects the realignment of Ankara's interests away from Washington and toward Moscow. Washington's planned punitive measures could precipitate Turkey’s exit from the NATO alliance. Unless concessions are forthcoming from the U.S. to induce Turkey to reciprocate by finding a face-saving way out of installing the S-400 system, a strategic divorce may not be averted.

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By M.K. Kaya

March 29, 2019

There is every reason to expect that Turkey’s municipal elections on March 31 will be a major setback for the ruling AKP and that they will set in motion developments that are going to alter the political landscape of the country. The AKP may be headed toward what will prove to be a historic defeat. The elections are pregnant with consequential political changes that are going to affect the nature of the Turkish regime, its Kurdish policies as well as Turkey’s relations to the West.

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By Gareth H. Jenkins

March 27, 2019

Despite intense pressure from the Turkish state, including the imprisonment of a large proportion of its leadership, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is again expected to win the majority of votes in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country in the nationwide local elections on March 31, 2019. But President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s repeated public threat to prevent HDP officials from holding office means that, for Turkey’s Kurds, the election will be less about choosing who will run their local authorities than their own identity amid a growing conviction that their future lies in a considerably looser relationship with the central government in Ankara.

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By Micha’el Tanchum

February 20, 2019

Turkey's recent stern rebuke of China's treatment of its Turkic Muslim, Uighur minority constitutes a stunning policy reversal by Ankara after more than three years of accommodating Beijing's policies in Xinjiang province.  The Turkish government's belated condemnation of China's internment camps in Xinjiang was prompted by an erroneous claim of the death in detention of a revered performer of Uighur traditional music. The timing was also motivated by the mounting pressure ahead of Turkey's March 31stelections from growing Turkish nationalist outrage over the Uighur's plight. Ankara's reversion to the nationalist line on Xinjiang reveals the inherent limit of Sino-Turkish cooperation, as Turkish nationalism's core element of Pan-Turkic solidarity poses an enduring threat to Beijing's vital interests in Xinjiang and its strategic ambitions across Turkic Central Asia..

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By Cengiz Çandar

February 14, 2019

The perception of a Kurdish threat from Syria, abetted by the United States, has provided the Turkish regime with its raison d’être. It is the glue that holds the power coalition of a variety of ultranationalists together. As long as the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan relies on the Kurdish “other” for its internal cohesion – and ultimately for its survival – that imperative will continue to determine Turkish foreign policy. But Turkey’s strategic reorientation is also sustained by a long history of deep-seated suspicion of American motives. Indeed, Turkish-American relations were never harmonious and their history has taught the Turkish state elite not to trust the United States, and never before had so much been at stake as today.

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Joint Center Publications

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019

Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power"Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and TurkeyThe American Interest, June 2018

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection"Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018

Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018

Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?"The American Interest, February 1, 2018

Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018

Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy"Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018

 

The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

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