Balkanalysis.com

By Mehmet Kalyoncu Nowadays, amid the current presidential and nearing parliamentary elections, Ankara is preoccupied with the question of a cross-border operation against Kurdish PKK militants who have found refuge in northern Iraq. A provocative comment came from one of the Kurdish leaders in Iraq, Massoud Barzani: “if Turkey interferes with Kirkuk, then we will [...]

By Ioannis Michaletos and Christopher Deliso A potentially major military face-off between perennial rivals Greece and Turkey could be looming, motivated by Turkish alarm over the imminent plan of the Cypriot government to explore for oil in the Mediterranean Sea. If it occurs, the showdown will reach a peak sometime between May 20-July 20, according [...]

By Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu Nowadays, energy diplomacy is more crucial than ever for the EU. There is a strong need for a long-term EU common energy policy in order to enable the bloc to meet its future energy needs. Turkey is likely to play an important role in the EU’s energy strategy. Energy has always [...]

If Turkey gives up its opposition to potential US recognition of the atrocities between Turks and Armenians that took place during World War One as a “genocide,” will its diplomatic hand ultimately be strengthened? The following article argues that this just might be the case. By Mehmet Kalyoncu What should have happened ninety-two years ago [...]

By Mehmet Kalyoncu The assassination of Hrant Dink, one of the most prominent Turkish Armenians and the editor-in-chief of bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos outside his newspaper’s office was a deplorable act by any definition. Yet it was not an unexpected one, given the selection of the target and its expected/actual impact on Turkish society [...]

By Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu One important geopolitical consequence of the demise of the Soviet Union was the rise of intense political and commercial competition for control of the vast energy resources of the eight newly independent and vulnerable states of Central Eurasia: the sub-region of Central Asia, consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; [...]

By Lara Scarpitta* It is old news that geography matters in foreign policy. A dormant EC/EU had to learn this vital lesson in 1989, when communism crumbled behind its safe walls. Faced with the sudden prospect of bordering poor, unpredictable and unstable neighbours, it responded by anchoring the former soviet satellites of Central Europe with [...]

By Ioannis Michaletos in Athens After the end of the Cold War in 1989, only a small corner in Europe remained divided along an “iron curtain” with its own divided capital. Cyprus, a beautiful island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, is the only state in Europe that has part of its territory (37 percent) occupied [...]

By Mehmet Kalyoncu A recent Newsweek article by Zeyno Baran projects a soft coup in Turkey in 2007. Baran suggests that the conditions that paved the way to the end of the Islamist Welfare Party government on February 28, 1997 have once again been materializing, with the current AK Party’s Turkey, so that a similar [...]

by Christopher Deliso “We are indeed all friends here, friends of a great relationship.” -Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to the American-Turkish Council, March 18, 2002 A major Kurdish diaspora group is calling for the head of a former American general recently dispatched to Turkey. The general, Joseph Ralston, has been accused of [...]