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The Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute was pleased to present the 7th Annual Conference on Turkey on Friday, September 30, 2016. The conference assembled three expert panels to discuss the impact of the coup attempt on Turkey's internal political-military dynamics as well as the country's relations with its Western allies and regional partners.
Conference Agenda
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Amb. Wendy Chamberlin
President, Middle East Institute
Michael Meier
Representative to the United States & Canada, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Panel 1: Turkey's Political Dynamics after the Attempted Coup
Mucahit Bilici
Associate Professor, John Jay College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Gareth Jenkins
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center
Garo Paylan
Member of Parliament, pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP)
Omer Taspinar
Professor of National Security Strategy, U.S. National War College; Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Gönül Tol (Moderator)
Founding Director, Center for Turkish Studies, Middle East Institute
Keynote Address
Honorable Niels Annen, MP
Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, German Bundestag; Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Social Democratic Party
Panel 2: U.S., Turkey, EU Relations: A Balancing Act
Volkan Bozkir
Member of Parliament, AKP and Former Minister of EU Affairs
Ambassador (ret.) James Jeffrey
Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Caroline Vicini
Deputy Head of Delegation, Delegation of the European Union to the United States
Ambassador (ret.) Robert Pearson (Moderator)
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Fellow, Middle East Institute
Panel 3: Regional Predicaments and Turkey’s Role
Haim Malka
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Middle East Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Bill Park
Senior Lecturer, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London
Karim Sadjadpour
Senior Associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Amberin Zaman
Public Policy Fellow, Middle East Program & Global Europe Program, Wilson Center
Margaret Brennan (Moderator)
Foreign Affairs Correspondent, CBS News
Speaker Biographies:
Honorable Niels Annen, MP
Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, German Bundestag; Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Social Democratic Party
MP Niels Annen is a foreign policy leader in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Since 2014, he has served as the spokesperson on foreign affairs of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag, where he represents the electoral district Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. He is also a member of the SPD’s executive committee. Annen was first elected to the Bundestag in 2005, and was a member until 2009, before being re-elected in 2013. He currently is a permanent member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and a substitute member of the Committee on Economics and Energy. Annen also serves as deputy spokesperson of the Parliamentary Left, the largest political grouping within the SPD Parliamentary Group, and acts as the chairperson of the SPD’s Commission for International Politics, alongside the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. Between 2014 and 2015, he represented the SPD Parliamentary Group in the "Commission on the Review and Safeguarding of Parliamentary Rights regarding Mandates for Bundeswehr Missions Abroad." An advocate for a stronger German role in international diplomacy, he supports multilateral engagement as a tool for resolving today’s conflicts and crises and protecting human rights. From 2011-2013, he was a researcher at the International Policy Analysis unit of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. He was also a senior resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, D.C. from 2010-2011. Prior to his election to the Bundestag, he served as chairperson of the SPD youth organization.
Mucahit Bilici
Associate Professor, John Jay College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Mucahit Bilici is an associate professor of Sociology at John Jay College and the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. He is the author of Finding Mecca in America: How Islam Is Becoming an American Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2012). In addition to American Islam, his research interests include social theory, Islamophobia, Muslim societies, Kurdish studies, and the theologian Said Nursî. Bilici is a faculty fellow at CUNY Dispute Resolution Center and a regular columnist for Yeni Yuzyil, a Turkish daily. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.
Volkan Bozkir
Member of Parliament, AKP and Former Minister of EU Affairs
Volkan Bozkir is a diplomat and member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey from Istanbul. Throughout his career he has served in various positions including vice-consul of the Consulate General of Stuttgart, Germany, first secretary of the Embassy in Baghdad, counselor of Turkey's permanent delegation to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, consul general in New York, Turkish ambassador to Romania, and ambassador of the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the EU. He has also served as the foreign policy advisor Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, chief of staff to Presidents Ozal and Suleyman Demirel, secretary general for EU Affairs and deputy undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also minister of EU Affairs and chief negotiator. He was elected as a member of parliament in 2011, and has since served as the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the chair of the Turkish-American Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group, and co-chair of the Turkey-Russia Social Forum.
Margaret Brennan (Moderator)
Foreign Affairs Correspondent, CBS News
Margaret Brennan is a foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News who reports on national security and foreign policy issues around the world. Brennan reported extensively on the nuclear negotiations with Iran, efforts to confront ISIS, the diplomatic breakthrough to restore relations with Cuba, the conflict in Ukraine, and the accord to transfer control of Syria's chemical weapons. Brennan was part of the CBS News team honored with a 2012-2013 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for coverage of the Newtown tragedy. Prior to joining CBS News, Brennan spent a decade covering the global financial markets. She anchored a weekday Bloomberg Television show called "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan."
Ambassador (ret.) Wendy Chamberlin
President, The Middle East Institute
Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin has been president of the Middle East Institute since 2007. As deputy high commissioner for refugees from 2004- 2007, she supervised the administration of the U.N. humanitarian organization. A 29-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, she was ambassador to Pakistan from 2001- 2002, when she played a key role in securing Pakistan’s cooperation in the U.S.-led campaign against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11.
Ambassador (ret.) James F. Jeffrey
Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Ambassador James F. Jeffrey is the Philip Solondz distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on U.S. diplomatic and military strategy in the Middle East, with emphasis on Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. One of the nation's most distinguished diplomats, Amb. Jeffrey has held numerous posts in Washington and abroad. In addition to his service as ambassador in Ankara and Baghdad, he served as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the George W. Bush administration, with a special focus on Iran. He previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of State, where his responsibilities included leading the Iran policy team and coordinating public diplomacy. Earlier appointments included service as: senior advisor on Iraq to the secretary of state; chargé d'affaires and deputy chief of mission in Baghdad; deputy chief of mission in Ankara; and, ambassador to Albania.
Gareth Jenkins
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center
Gareth Jenkins is a writer and analyst, based in Istanbul since 1989. He is a non-resident senior fellow with the Silk Road Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and regular contributor to its biweekly Turkey Analyst. As a journalist for international wire services, newspapers, and periodicals during his first ten years in Turkey, he covered a broad range of political, economic and social issues in the country and its surrounding region. In recent years he has edited volumes, contributed articles, reviews, analyses, and commentaries to scholarly journals, and delivered presentations at seminars and conferences. His special fields of interest are civil-military relations, terrorism and security issues, and political Islam.
Haim Malka
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Middle East Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Haim Malka is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His principal areas of research include religious radicalization, government strategies to combat extremism, violent nonstate actors, and North African politics and security. Before joining CSIS in 2005, he was a research analyst at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he concentrated on U.S. Middle East policy. Malka earlier worked for six years in Jerusalem as a television news producer. He is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television, is the coauthor of Arab Reform and Foreign Aid: Lessons from Morocco (CSIS, 2006), and authored Crossroads: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership (CSIS, 2011).
Michael Meier
Representative to the United States & Canada, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Michael Meier was appointed as representative of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) to the U.S. and Canada in September 2014. Prior to his current assignment, he was FES representative to Turkey for five years. Meier also served as head of the Department for Western Europe and North America at FES headquarters in Berlin. From 1991- 2003, he was resident representative of FES in Senegal, Ethiopia, and Botswana. He is an expert on foreign and security policy in the Middle East and North Africa region, where he focused on Turkey’s role in the region, Turkey’s relations with the European Union, and Israel in particular. He also acted as advisor to the coordination group on Turkey in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and he is the author of numerous articles on current policy trends in Turkey. He is co-author of the book Elections in Africa (OUP, 1999).
Bill Park
Senior Lecturer, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London
Bill Park is a senior lecturer in the Defence Studies department at King’s College, London and has been primarily based at the UK’s Defence Academy. He is an expert on a range of Turkish foreign policy issues, including Turkey’s EU accession prospects, policies towards the KRG, domestic Kurdish issues, and the Fethullah Gulen movement. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, including “Turkey-KRG relations from the KRG’s perspective” (LSE Middle East Centre, 2016) and “Turkey’s dual relationship with Iraq: Ankara, Baghdad, and Erbil” (German Orient-Institute, 2015). He wrote the book Modern Turkey: People, State, and Foreign Policy in a Globalized World (Routledge, 2012) and is currently writing a book on Turkey and the Kurds of the Middle East. He serves as a trustee, council member, and research committee member for the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), is an editorial board member for the journal Mediterranean Politics, sits on the international advisory panel for the journal Turkish Studies, and is an advisor to the Centre for Turkish Studies in the UK. He is also a visiting scholar at TOBB-ET University in Ankara, where he spent January to April 2016. Park has given testimony on Turkish issues to both houses of the UK Parliament and has been consulted civilian and military UK government agencies and the U.S. State Department on Turkish issues.
Garo Paylan
Member of Parliament, pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP)
Garo Paylan is a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey from Istanbul and an economist. He is a founding member of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) and has served as a member of the Party Council and the party's Central Executive Committee for two terms. Previously, he served in administrative positions at a number of Armenian schools and worked on a project promoting multilingual education. He graduated from Istanbul University School of Business with a degree in economics.
Ambassador (ret.) Robert Pearson (Moderator)
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Fellow, Middle East Institute
Ambassador (ret.) W. Robert Pearson is a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, where he focuses on Turkey with particular emphasis on Turkish relations with the EU, Russia, the Middle East, and the United States. Amb. Pearson is a retired career Foreign Service Officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2000 to 2003. He was director general of the U.S. Foreign Service from 2003 to 2006, repositioning the American Foreign Service to meet the challenges of the 21st century and winning two national awards for his efforts. He served from 2008 to 2014 as president of IREX, an international development NGO based in Washington, spearheading its expansion to reach more than 125 countries worldwide. He has published numerous articles, blogs and opinion pieces on diplomacy, foreign policy, Turkey, NGOs, and development. He is a frequent speaker on issues concerning Turkey, international development and the role of diplomacy in American engagement abroad.
Karim Sadjadpour
Senior Associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Karim Sadjadpour is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was previously an analyst with the International Crisis Group, based in Tehran and Washington. He is the author of Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader (Carnegie Endowment, 2008). He appears frequently on CNN, BBC, and NPR, and has written for The Economist, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy. In 2007, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos. He has lived in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and speaks Persian, Italian, and Spanish. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Omer Taspinar
Professor of National Security Strategy, U.S. National War College; Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Omer Taspinar is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center on 21st Century Security and Intelligence, a professor at the National War College, and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He has held consulting positions at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in Washington and at the strategic planning department of TOFAS-FIAT in Istanbul. He has expertise on Turkey, the European Union, Muslims in Europe, political Islam, the Middle East, and Kurdish nationalism. He earned his a doctorate and master’s in European studies and international economics at SAIS and his bachelor's in political science from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. He is the author of two books and numerous scholarly articles, and has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, CNN International, NBC, CNBC, CBS, and on Turkish television.
Gönül Tol
Founding Director, Center for Turkish Studies, Middle East Institute
Gönül Tol is the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies. She is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies and authors a weekly column for the liberal Turkish daily Radikal. She previously worked at the U.S. Representative Office of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) and has lectured as an adjunct professor at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University. She writes extensively on Turkey-U.S. relations, Turkish domestic politics, Turkish foreign policy, and the Kurdish issue. She is a frequent media commentator on Islamist movements in Western Europe and Turkish politics. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Florida International University, where she was a graduate fellow at the Middle East Studies Center.
Caroline Vicini
Deputy Head of Delegation, Delegation of the European Union to the United States
Caroline Vicini took up the position as deputy head of the EU delegation in Washington D.C. on September 1st, 2015. At the delegation she steps in in the absence of the Ambassador and runs the daily management of the delegation. She also chairs the weekly deputy chief of mission (DCM) meeting where the coordination between the embassies of the 28 EU member states take place. Previously, Vicini was chief of protocol with the rank of Ambassador at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm, Sweden. From 2004-2008 she was the DCM at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington D.C. after which she became a managing director for the public affairs company Kreab Gavin Anderson where she worked for clients from the private sector in Scandinavia. From 1999-2004, Vicini worked in security policy and military affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first as head of the political military section and thereafter as deputy head of the Department of European Security Policy. She handled defense material, the initial development of EU’s common foreign and defense policy, and matters related to intelligence agencies.
Amberin Zaman
Public Policy Fellow, Middle East Program & Global Europe Program, Wilson Center
Amberin Zaman is a public policy fellow in the Middle East and Global Europe programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She covered Turkey and regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Azerbaijan for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Voice of America and The Daily Telegraph before becoming The Economist's Turkey correspondent (1999-2015). She is currently a columnist for the independent online Turkish news portal Diken and for Al Monitor’s “Pulse of The Middle East.”