(R) Ambassador
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
The current state of Turkish-American relations reminds me of William Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be, that is the question” tirade expressed by Hamlet in the third act of the play.I think this tirade perfectly applies to the difficulty of managing the bilateral confrontation we will witness later this month. While both parties have
Two people stand on the theater stage; Estragon and Vladimir. They are waiting for someone named Godot but neither of them know why and who they are waiting for.“Waiting for Godot” is a two-act theater play written by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett . It’s generally accepted as one of the most important examples of
The recent history of the Turkish-Israeli relationship amounts to unnecessary bickering despite a clear convergence of interests. Contrary to popular belief in such critical institutions as U.S. Congress, the interests of both countries are strongly aligned but ideological disagreements in combination with bad luck and short-sighted populist policies on both sides are responsible for a
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement condemning some of the foreign reactions to the heavy-handed approach of the Turkish government in reaction to the protests at Boğaziçi University. It saddens me to see that the 150 years old reputation of our Foreign Ministry is being ruined. The epicenter of the country’s foreign relations
The oldest democracy in the world has just survived an existential crisis. Did the most experienced democracy in the world lack the institutional reflexes needed to protect itself? Is it possible that certain negative externalities from the American Civil War and its racist past still resonated? Or should we assume the problems were caused by
We started the year 2020 with great hopes but it turned out to be a lost year; a year with less love and less peace. The pandemic induced a general atmosphere of unhappiness and a feeling of unease prevailed globally. An invisible virus forced humanity to distance itself from loved ones in order to survive.The
While politics in America is witnessing the rise of the far-right, few in Turkey are paying attention. Turkish policymakers and the public are focused on the election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States and its potential externalities on American foreign policy. In the meantime, in the United States, the rise
With only a few days left until the 2020 presidential election in the U.S., the whole world is holding its breath.On one hand, the international community is struggling to deal with the unprecedented social and economic effects of a global pandemic. On the other, it is trying to manage the externalities of political populism that