The “Assad-Sisi axis” has become one of the paradigms explaining very well the global crisis that we have gone through as far as its actors and global repercussions are concerned.

SETA PANEL DISCUSSION Chair: Taha Özhan, SETA Panelists:        Bülent Aras, SETA & İTÜ     Mahmood Monshipouri,     San Francisco State University Date: March 22, 2010 Monday Time: 11.00 – 12.30 Venue: SETA Foundation, Ankara

Prof. Efraim Inbar - whose works on Turkish-Israeli relations deserve much credit - recently wrote an op-ed piece "An open letter to my Turkish friends" in The Jerusalem Post in which he paints a grotesque picture of Turkey's new foreign policy vision and domestic political developments. It misleadingly confines the multi-dimensional Turkish foreign policy vision to politics of ideology that is reminiscent of the Cold War years.

In a rather unprecedented cry of outrage, Prince Turki al-Faisal, one of the most prominent figures of the Saudi state, put it bluntly: If the US under the new Obama administration does not change its policy toward Israel and Palestine, the Saudis will no longer maintain their “special relationship” with the US (“Saudi Arabia’s patience is running out,” Financial Times, Jan. 23, 2009). Quoting from the Saudi king that his peace plan, called “the Arab peace initiative,” is still on the table, the prince added that “it would not remain there for long.”