President Abdullah Gül said it's a “historic opportunity” and called on everyone not to miss it. Prime Minister Erdoğan said “good things may happen.” Interior Minister Beşir Atalay confirmed that “some steps are being taken.” A few weeks earlier, the chief of general staff, İlker Başbuğ, outlined the military's vision on the problem and gave the most progressive speech by any top general.   

There are two main reasons for the Turkish outcry. First of all, Turkey has been acting as a facilitator between Israel and Syria over the last year or so. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, the two sides were very close to moving to the next stage of direct talks. This would have been one of the most important breakthroughs in the Middle East in a long time. After the war on Gaza started, the Syrian-Israeli talks were suspended

The survey “Turkey's Perception of the Kurdish Issue,” jointly conducted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and PollMark, has yielded quite important sociological findings on the relations between Turks and Kurds.

A recent poll has once more proven Samuel Huntington wrong. A growing number of people across the globe don’t believe that a clash between Islam and the West is inevitable.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many thought the date would mark a turning point in modern history. The common belief was that nothing would be the same again. We had entered a new era of global terror when humanity would unite against this universal evil. Sept. 11 turned out to be a major turning point, but not in the way the secular ideologues and the religious zealots of America had imagined.  

Is Europe big enough for Turkey? A recent opinion poll conducted by Financial Times/Harris says no. This public sentiment is particularly worrying at a time when Turkey is fast approaching the July 22 general elections. The Financial Times/Harris poll was conducted online in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US. According to the results 71 percent of French citizens and 66 percent of Germans oppose Turkey’s full membership of the EU. Such results are not new. The Eurobarometer, another major poll conducted regularly across Europe, has been yielding similar results for the last three years.    

The excitement Turkey generates in the Arab world and beyond (the Balkans, Europe and parts of Africa can easily be added to the list) seems to be sustained by the confluence of substantial changes in three areas: Turkey, the region and the world.

Turkey is deadlocked again over the headscarf issue. The matter is about more than lifting or enforcing the headscarf ban. As in all critical issues, it goes to the heart of the established order.

The short-term winner of the July 22 elections is the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) but the big winner is the traditional periphery of Turkish society. The AK Party’s challenge now is to turn this victory into an asset for those who voted for the party. And this means electing a president who will not be a disappointment for the vast majority of the public.

The survey “Turkey's Perception of the Kurdish Issue,” jointly conducted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and PollMark, has yielded quite important sociological findings on the relations between Turks and Kurds.  The research was undertaken to reveal the content and the grounds of the social relations between the two communities, the current phase of social integration and whether terror and violence have caused lack of trust and confidence between these social groups. The survey shows that the will and desire for coexistence transcends ideological, ethnic and political identities. The research points out that despite the lengthy period of violence and terror, political polemics and crises, there is still no environment of distrust or enmity between Turks and Kurds and that the country is not threatened by the danger of ethnic violence over Turkishness or Kurdishness.

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.

The profound transformation in the priorities of Turkey’s foreign policy and macroeconomic strategy should be read in view of tectonic shifts in the world system...

SETA PUBLIC LECTURE by Naser Elmanea, SRPR Date: February 28, 2011 Monday Time: 16.00 - 18.00 Venue: SETA, Ankara

SETA is going to hire research assistants for the following fields:

Critics say Turkey's Syria policy doesn't work because Assad is not reforming but the critics are wrong.

In the past decade, Turkey moved towards more domestic democracy - while its neighbourhood changed in fundamental ways.