Iran Archive
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How Turkey’s Islamists fell out of love with Iran
”Iran’s rapid fall from grace with Turkish Islamists is one of the most important recent structural shifts in the Middle East. Such a break is far from marginal and yields several important points for consideration. This shift validates the Ataturk- Pahlavi example, which shows that détente in Turkish-Iranian relations can only happen when both [...] -
Culture, epistemology and foreign policy: An alternative reading of U.S.-Turkish relations within the context of the Middle East
Vol.1 No.3, September 2010 There is a subtle, yet very critical dimension to this seeming stagnation in Turkish-American relations that elides almost all analyses and observers: the dimension of culture and epistemology. This dimension became more explicit to me as I participated in a roundtable conference recently that had brought a group of American and [...] -
The danger of ‘Nabucco complacency’ in Turkey-EU relations
Turkey on Monday finalized the signing of the Nabucco pipeline project; perhaps one of the most important milestones in the country’s energy policy, as well as its almost half-century old European Union, or EU, vocation. The project in question (named after Giuseppe Verdi’s four-movement opera, depicting the story of the Jews fleeing the Babylonian king ‘Nebuchadnezzar’) [...] -
Post-PKK Operations: Will Turkey Change Its Attitude toward Iran and Syria?
Since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, the absence of U.S. action toward the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) presence in northern Iraq has been driving a wedge between Turkey and the United States. Meanwhile, Turkey’s ties with Iran and Syria, which analysts characterized as “cold if occasionally cordial” in the 1990s, have [...] -
Iraqi Kurds and the Turkish-Iraqi Memorandum against the PKK
On August 7, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Ankara against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Although the PKK, based in northern Iraq, is on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, lack of action against the group by Washington [...] -
July 2007 Turkish Elections: Winners and Fault Lines
In the wake of a May 2007 presidential election crisis and subsequent political stalemate — punctuated by massive public rallies and intervention by both the judiciary and the military — Turkey called for early parliamentary elections to be held in July 2007. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which consolidated its hold on various [...]
