Podcast from the December event.
This Opinion piece first appeared in Frontline’s Tehran Bureau on January 19, 2012.
After months of frosty relations, Iran and Turkey are talking again. The ostensible reason for Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Tehran two weeks ago was to try to jump start stalled nuclear talks with the so-called P5+1 group of nations. Davutoglu conveyed to Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili the European Union’s invitation to resume the talks in Turkey that were suspended a year ago for lack of progress.
MEI Annual Banquet
Wednesday, November 16, 2010
6:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Award Recipient – Issam M. Fares Award for Excellence
H.E. Amb. Lakhdar Brahimi
The Arab Spring: Implications for US Policy and Interests
The 2011 Second Annual Conference on Turkey, entitled “Change Within and Beyond and Borders: Turkey’s Domestic and Foreign Policy Agenda,” was organized by the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute on June 23rd, 2011 at the University Club. As the Conference coincided with recent important developments in Turkey, especially the general elections, about 300 participants from think tanks, universities, U.S. and foreign government officials as well as private sectors attended the Conference.
This Commentary was first published as an op-ed in Politico on October 21, 2011
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asserted recently that critics of the Libyan mission “have been proven wrong.” Now, with the death of dictator Muammar Qadhafi, the secretary’s view is supported by the overwhelming majority of Washington’s foreign policy establishment.
The trilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States has deteriorated in recent years as Israel's and Turkey's foreign policy goals in the Middle East continue to diverge. Despite repeated attempts, the United States has failed to reconcile these two important regional allies since the divisive Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010. MEI and The Stimson Center held a discussion of this critical yet troubled trilateral relationship in a time of unprecedented change in the Middle East featuring Prof. William B. Quandt, Edward R.
Amidst ongoing violence against protestors in Syria, Hande Ayan of the Center for Turkish Studies discusses the uneasy diplomatic relationship between Turkey and Syria and Turkey’s role in the political situation there. The September 2011 Bulletin also introduces MEI scholars Philip Frayne, who speaks on his Foreign Service career and offers his insights on how the US can support democratic transitions in the Middle East, and Randa Slim, who is interviewed on her experience in post-conflict reconciliation.
When President Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, the two discussed cooperation on Syria, counter-terrorism and supporting the Arab spring. But a central theme of the talks, and what most concerns the U.S. at the moment, is a sharply deteriorating Turkish relationship with Israel that the U.S. hopes to reverse. Conversely, this deterioration was the source of much acclaim when Erdogan visited Arab spring countries last week.
The release of last week’s UN Palmer Report, assessing Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara and five other ships carrying aid to Gaza, sparked outrage in Turkey. Many criticized the report’s alleged bias, and claimed it failed to provide a credible legal analysis of the Mavi Marmara incident in which nine Turkish citizens were shot to death by Israeli commandos, some at close range and from behind.
Speakers: Amb. Wendy Chamberlin, MEI President
Amb. Gene Cretz, US Ambassador to Libya
Mark Ward, Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID
Travis Gartner, Director of Community Stabilization, IRD
Governments in the Middle East and North Africa have long relied on repression to intimidate, harass, and punish political opponents. During the Arab uprisings, dictators under threat have all ordered and used violence against peaceful protestors as a way to maintain power. But this repression has had widely divergent effects on the course of the different conflicts.
This Commentary was first published as an op-ed in the Washington Post on August 22, 2011
A relatively successful transition from the Gaddafi regime to a united, stable, more open and democratic Libya would be seen in the region, and more widely, as a credit to the NATO-led intervention. It would enable Libya to resume its oil and gas exports, demonstrate international community capacity to manage such transitions and encourage positive outcomes to other Arab Spring protests.