Erdoğan is in the process of establishing a presidential political system in Turkey based on Islamic rather than secular principles

On 10 August, Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, won the country’s presidential election, becoming the first directly elected President in Turkey’s history. Soli Özel assesses Erdoğan’s victory and what it means for the country’s future. He writes that the result is a step toward the creation of a new presidential political system within Turkey, but that this will depend on whether Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party can secure the parliamentary majority required to amend the country’s constitution

US policies adrift in a levant in turmoil

The Levant has constituted one of the core areas of interest for US foreign policy since the Second World War. The aim of this article is to shed light on the US policies towards the Levant, mostly during the last two American administrations, to understand how the vicissitudes of the region and of American politics made Washington’s policy towards the Levant look biased, at times incompetent, and most importantly inconsistent. This article examines the changes in approach to the region as a whole from one administration to the next on issues such as the protection of Israel’s sovereignty, supporting friendly regimes, fighting terrorism, and containing Iran. The hesitations and shifts in policy towards Syria are given a longer treatment as they speak both to the yet not finalized American policy towards the Levant but also to show how the US has shifted track and moved away from unseating President Assad to focus more on containing and if possible rolling over Iran.Levant bölgesi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan bu yana ABD dış politikasının öncelikli çıkar alanlarından birini oluşturmaktadır. Bu makalenin amacı, ABD’nin, bilhassa da son iki Amerikan yönetiminin, Levant’a yönelik politikalarını açıklığa kavuşturmayı, bölgede ve Amerikan siyasetindeki değişimlerin Washington’un Levant’a yönelik politikasının nasıl yanlı, zaman zaman beceriksiz ve daha da önemlisi tutarsız görünmesine neden olduğunu anlamayı hedeflemektedir. Makale, bir yönetimden diğerine İsrail’in egemenliğinin korunması, dostane rejimlerin desteklenmesi, terörizmle mücadele ve İran’ın kontrol altına alınması gibi konularda ve genel itibariyle bölgeye yönelik yaklaşımdaki değişiklikleri incelemektedir. Suriye’ye yönelik politikadaki tereddütler ve değişimler daha detaylı ele alınmıştır. Nitekim bu konular Amerika’nın Levant’a yönelik politikasının henüz son halini almadığının, daha da ötesinde gelişmeler karşısında ABD’nin nasıl yön değiştirdiğini ve Esad’ı yerinden etme hedefinden uzaklaşarak İran’ı kontrol altına alma ve eğer mümkünse boyun eğdirmeye odaklandığına işaret etmektedir.WOS:000459641600011Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072Social Sciences Citation IndexQ4ArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIROcak2018YÖK - 2017-1

Today’s referendum is the most critical vote in modern Turkish history

Today, Turkey is holding a referendum on whether to approve constitutional amendments that would substantially increase the power of the country’s President. Soli Özel and Sezin Öney write that the result is bound to transform the country in one way or another, and that a Yes vote would effectively consign Turkey’s century old parliamentary system to history

Turkey's Green Imagination: The Spatiality of the Low-Carbon Energy Transition within the EU Green Deal

Stiftung Mercator; German Federal Foreign Office; Centre for Applied T urkey Studies (CATS) at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik; international network of think tanks and research institutions working on TurkeyThis article was produced in the framework of the CATS Network project ?Environmental Geopolitics in the Southern Mediterranean: The Potential for Cooperation between Turkey, Egypt and Israel?, funded by Stiftung Mercator and the German Federal Foreign Office. The Centre for Applied T urkey Studies (CATS) at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin is the curator of CATS Network, an international network of think tanks and research institutions working on Turkey.This article asks the extent to which the EU Green Deal influences the EU periphery today and builds on the spatial conditions of multiple, co-existing decarbonization pathways within the EU Green Deal while problematizing the 'green imagination' of Turkey as an immediate neighbour and a candidate country for membership in the EU. As such, it uncovers that the current low-carbon transition process in Turkey is prone to be shaped by the highly politicized energy market in an authoritarian neoliberal structure on the one hand, and Turkey's priorities in energy issues and hard security on the other. The findings further reveal that Turkey's efforts to use more domestic energy resources to meet its consumption needs might also interfere with its efforts and obligations to decarbonize its energy sector. The scrutiny into the low-carbon energy transition in Turkey accordingl contributes further insight into the consequences of the spatiality of such transitions in an authoritarian neoliberal context, and what other alternative policies can be imagined and put in practice. Thus, more empirical research is warranted to reveal the spatiality of the low-carbon energy transition across various geographical settings. At the same time, the article argues that both the EU and its partners such as Turkey should be weary of creating green utopias when redesigning their green-energy space since utopias tout court may not always stimulate large-scale change in a revolutionary way in terms of sustainability, feasibility, good practice, and inclusiveness in decision-making processes.WOS:0009222799000012-s2.0-851535377061162176Social Sciences Citation IndexarticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIREylül2023YÖK - 2022-2

Turkish Attitudes vis-à-vis the Zionist Project

La coopération entre Israël et la Turquie connaît une renaissance. Les auteurs se penchent d'abord sur les modalités de la reconnaissance de l'État hébreu lors de sa fondation et les réticences qui animèrent les politiciens turcs. Ceux-ci furent toujours guidés dans leur attitude à l'endroit d'Israël par des calculs rationnels. Ils appréhendèrent, et avec raison, ce pays comme une ouverture vers l'Occident. Lorsqu'ils se rendirent compte de la force des sionistes et de leur capacité à influencer Washington en faveur de la Turquie, leur comportement envers eux et envers Israël changea fondamentalement. La Turquie vit en Israël un allié naturel, mais attendit 1990 pour le proclamer ouvertement

Zirveye çıkış

Taha Toros Arşivi, Dosya No: 47-Turgut Özal. Not: Nokta dergisi tarafından çıkarılan Turgut Özal özel ekidir.Unutma İstanbul projesi İstanbul Kalkınma Ajansı'nın 2016 yılı "Yenilikçi ve Yaratıcı İstanbul Mali Destek Programı" kapsamında desteklenmiştir. Proje No: TR10/16/YNY/010

2021: Year of decisions

[cite][/cite] Turkey’s recently emboldened and assertive (and for some aggressive) foreign policy has been widely noticed and even ranked as one of the top ten risks in the world for 2021. Its actions raise not totally justified concerns and cause irritation among its allies. Increasingly over-reliant on hard power, deployed with an ideologically hegemonic and even expansionist narrative, Ankara is taking advantage of the vacuum created by a retreating United States, the shambolic state ..