SETA Panel brought two distinguished speakers together to discuss Turkish-Tunisian relations, as well as the recent developments in the Middle East and the North Africa: Foreign Affairs Minister of Tunisia Rafik Abdessalem and Foreign Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoğlu.

Turkey’s mediation efforts in the most recent political crisis in Lebanon in January 2011 are driven by the assessment that a possible conflict would directly threaten Turkey’s interests.

There are many reasons to be hopeful about the election results in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a very long time the Social Democratic Party (SDP) received the highest number of votes in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, and on the state level pulling in interethnic votes by re-electing Ivo Komsic, the Croat member of the Presidency. The election of Bakir Izetbegovic, the son of the legendary leader of the Bosniak independence movement, Alija Izetbegovic, is also a positive development. Bakir Izetbegovic is considered a moderate compared to the former Bosniak member of the Presidency, Haris Silajdzic, who regularly spoke of putting an end to Republika Srpska, further straining relations between Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

The “Lieberman Plan” aims at removing Israel’s “effective control” over Gaza, without compromising Israeli security or intruding upon its own sovereignty.

SETA PUBLIC LECTURE By  Ulaş Doğa Eralp,  Visiting Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution, Sabancı University Date: July 8, 2010 Thursday  Time: 16.00 – 18.00 Venue: SETA Foundation, Ankara

"All options are on the table” is the best phrase to describe how Turkey feels about Israel’s attack on humanitarian aid flotilla carrying more than 600 activists from 32 countries. What happened on Sunday night is a real game changer. Israel will, most likely, no longer be seen as a friendly state nor an ally, but will be treated as a rogue state by Turkey.

It was a disappointing moment for Turks to learn that the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to approve a resolution describing the massacre of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the first world war as genocide. Turkey recalled its newly appointed ambassador to Washington, Namık Tan, for consultation a few minutes after the vote. It is no secret that there is an "Armenian question" in Turkish-American relations, which has resulted in a seasonal oscillation in bilateral relations around this time of year for many years.

SETA D.C. PANEL Speakers: Taha Özhan (Moderator) Director-General of the SETA Foundation Cengiz Çandar Columnist, Radikal Newspaper  Prof. Bülent Aras the SETA Foundation  Prof. Fuat Keyman Koç University  Date: December 8, 2009 Monday Venue: Grand Ballroom, Mayflower Hotel, Washington D.C.

SETA PANEL  Chair:     Talip Küçükcan     SETA Participants:     Dr. Bashir Ansari     Afghan intellectual and writer     Prof. M. Nazif Shahrani     Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures & Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,     Indiana University, United States Date: August 13, 2009 Time: 11.00 Venue: SETA Foundation, Ankara  

The meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President George W. Bush at the White House last Monday was expected to be a turning point for Turkey’s war on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorism as well as for US-Turkish relations; at least some on the Turkish side thought so. While Prime Minister Erdoğan said he was happy with the outcome of the meeting, it is simplistic to interpret this as a watershed event in US-Turkish relations.  

"A momentous day." This is how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described the decision by the Russian parliament to recognize the independence claims of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s visit to the White House, his first such visit to the US as president and the first visit by a Turkish president in 11 years, comes at a time when US-Turkish relations have taken a new turn.

For those who are serious about the United Nations Alliance of Civilization initiative chaired by the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain, I have a suggestion: Give a new start to the initiative by lifting the sanctions on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC). This will send a powerful message to the Turkish people as well as other Muslim countries that the Europeans and Americans are serious about improving their relations with the Islamic world. Last week, the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation (ICFY) held its first international advisory board meeting in Kyrene/Girne, northern Cyprus. The theme of the meeting was “Youth for the Alliance of Civilizations.” The meeting was opened by a keynote address by Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Turgay Avci, who emphasized the significance of the fact that such a meeting was taking place in northern Cyprus. He also reiterated the Turkish Cypriot people’s will to help create a united island and integrate with the rest of the world.  

The transition from Cho Seung-Hui, the South Korean student responsible for the Virgina Tech massacre, to the graphic killings in Malatya was fast and furious. No matter how hard we try to disconnect the two, there is a disturbing link. While we think how such a massacre could take place at an American university, those in the West speculate about the Malatya killings.

The Bush administration’s troubles in the Middle East and at home show no sign of diminishing. More and more Americans are coming forward to call the US policy in Iraq a total disaster. Their remedy is immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But there is more to US troubles than the mismanagement of an unjustified war. After much fanfare, the Bush administration’s “new  strategy on Iraq” turned out to be similar to shooting in the dark hoping that some shots will hit their target. Sending more troops to Iraq without pressuring the Maliki government to stop sectarian violence was received with more suspicion than ever.

CONFERENCE     February 8, 2007 German Marshall Fund, Washington DC