(R) Ambassador
The official visit of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) to Turkey on November 24 was analysed from a commercial and economic perspective in Turkey. The political significance of the visit was largely ignored by Turkish mainstream media. And it wasn’t questioned why Turkey and the UAE, who were on
Many of you will recall the movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray as a depressed weatherman who keeps reliving the same day. In this brilliant comedy, the lead character overcomes his predicament by changing his own behavior. While everything else stays the same, he keeps adjusting his own actions until he gets it right. Democrats
While all parties involved expect the Turkish Armed Forces to carry out another military operation in Syria, the cost of the deepening crisis in Syria is increasing every single day. With no end in sight, a UN estimate that it would take at least 30 years for per capita income to reach pre-war levels if
The foreign policy implemented unilaterally by one man is inherently difficult to predict and grandfathers great risks. If President Tayyip Erdoğan had consulted with career foreign policy officers, he would have known the risks of personally trying to play the United States and Russia against each other, and that it would have been much wiser
The Al Qaida attacks of September 11, 2001, took place two weeks after I left my responsibilities at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC. I was appointed to the America desk of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara. It was just past lunchtime and our assistant deputy undersecretary Vefahan Ocak was not in
Late Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit visited Moscow on the eve of the Soviet invasion into Afghanistan in 1979 where he asked his counterpart Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin what they were aiming at by an intervention against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Kosygin sarcastically answered that they wanted “to carry Afghanistan from the 12th to the 16th
“A Paper Tiger” is a Chinese saying used to refer to those who bark very loudly but cannot follow through on their threats. Chinese communist leader Mao Zedung coined the phrase referring to American threats against China and history seems to have proven the U.S. was largely powerless in its efforts to create regime change
Former Senator Jeff Flake has been nominated as the US Ambassador to Ankara by the US President Joe Biden. If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, the Trump-opponent Republican Flake is going to be the first political appointee, not a carrier diplomat as Ambassador to the Turkish capital after 40 years. He will take the office
The United States has asked Turkey to take over peace and stability operations at the Hamid Karzai Airport in the capital of Afghanistan. The request was personally conveyed to President Erdogan by President Biden during their encounter at the recent NATO summit. And, during the post-summit press conference, Erdoğan confirmed that he replied positively to this
During the last decade before the fall of the Soviet Union, I served as a foreign service officer in Moscow. Every western diplomat that negotiated with Soviet counterparts knew their negotiation attitude could be summarized as follows; “What is ours is ours. What is yours is negotiable.” This attitude seems to be at the heart