Tag Archives: Turkey-Russia

A Brief Overview of Türkiye’s Foreign Relations

September 19, 2022 The Middle East: In December 2009, the communique issued at the end of the Damascus meeting of the “Turkish-Syrian High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council” referred to a “strategic partnership”, at the time a fashionable label for Türkiye’s relationships … Continue reading

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The Erdoğan-Putin Summit

August 7, 2022 Last Friday President Erdoğan flew to Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi where he was welcomed by President Putin as a “dear friend”. [i] Two weeks ago, in joint remarks to the press following the Astana … Continue reading

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Russia-Ukraine Crisis Episode 3

February 24, 2022 It started with satellite photos of the Russian military buildup near Ukraine in early November 2021. Ever since, Russia and the West have been fighting a war of nerves with frenetic diplomacy accompanied by mutual accusations of … Continue reading

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How We Lost Our Way

May 3, 2021 During my years at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I sometimes asked the ambassadors in Ankara how they viewed their job in our capital since they usually stressed Turkey’s location as a unique observation post for … Continue reading

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Quo Vadis Turkey (3)

Co-authored with Yusuf Buluc (*) July 29, 2019 A year ago, if one were patient enough to draw up a list of the problems on the Turkish-American agenda this would have reflected a relationship not between NATO allies or family … Continue reading

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Turkey’s S400s/F35s Conundrum

  June 14, 2019 The last episode of the S400 missiles/F35 fighters controversy has taken Turkey-US relations to unprecedented lows. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart. For some, this was an “ultimatum”.  Ankara’s earlier … Continue reading

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Fighting for Survival?

  May 22, 2019 Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) principal theme in the recent municipal election campaign was “the fight for Turkey’s survival”. The party and its supporters in the media claimed that Turkey was under the siege … Continue reading

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From Downing of Russian Military Aircraft to the Purchase of Russian S-400s

March 11, 2019 At the beginning of the Syrian conflict Russia and Turkey were on diametrically opposite sides. Russia was supporting the regime, the Turkish government the opposition. Nonetheless, Turkish-Russian relations remained on track. On November 24, 2015 a stunning … Continue reading

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Time to Get a Grip

August 20, 2018 When President Obama’s visited Turkey in April 2009 he underlined Turkey’s “strong, vibrant, secular democracy”. Turkish-American relations appeared to have reached their peak. As Turkey started to move away from the democratic path relations started to sour … Continue reading

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The Trump-Iran-North Korea Imbroglio

April 10, 2018 Forty-seven years ago, today, the U.S. table tennis team arrived in China. Later in the year, in July 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to China   paving the way for Richard Nixon’s own … Continue reading

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