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Turkey's Middle Class Strikes Back

June 5, 2013  •  The New York Times

Since 2002, Turkey's sound economic policies have made it a member of the Group of 20 and turned it into a majority middle-class society for the first time in its history. Yet this week's huge protests show that the ruling Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., has become a victim of its own success.

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Turks Have Learned the Power of Grassroots Politics

June 4, 2013  •  The Atlantic

Turkey witnessed two fascinating developments last week. In the first, pro-environment groups organized a sit-in to protest government plans to cut down trees in the heart of Istanbul to make way for a shopping mall. Attendance to the sit-in, later dubbed the "Tree revolution," grew quickly into the thousands, suggesting the birth of a new environmental dynamic in Turkish politics. More importantly, when the security forces cracked down on the sit-in, using teargas and water cannons, tens of thousands of people poured into Istanbul's streets in the middle of the night to defend their right to protest, as well as the right of people of different ideological stripes to do the same.

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Testing Turkey

May 28, 2013  •  Foreign Affairs

For all the talk of Turkey's "zero problems with neighbors," no amount of soft power has been able to protect the country from the protracted civil war in Syria. Now over two years old, that conflict has laid bare Ankara's inability to match Tehran's influence in the region -- or even to secure itself against violence as the conflict has spilled over its borders. After years of trying to go it alone in the Middle East, Turkey's leaders and public must face the fact that their country needs the United States and NATO for security and stability.

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Syrian crisis leading towards open Turkey-Iran conflict

May 26, 2013  •  Asharq Al Awsat

Soon after the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, Turkey launched an ambitious foreign policy agenda to make itself a stand-alone regional leader. With this new vision, Turkey looked to cast itself as a central actor, wielding soft power to shape the Middle East.

The Syrian war and Iran's regional hegemonic designs have, unfortunately, stunted most of Ankara's ambitions.

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Syria to top Erdogan's Washington agenda

May 16, 2013  •  CNN Global Public Square

This week's summit between President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reflects the extraordinary development of relations between the United States and Turkey.

Ankara faces a civil war in Syria that is forcing Turkey to contend with a weak and divided state on its borders. This disintegration brings the dangers of chemical weapons proliferation and al Qaeda infiltration on Turkey's doorstep. Coping with these challenges will be near impossible without U.S. support, particularly after the May 11 bombings that devastated Reyhanli, a Turkish border town near Syria. Erdogan is therefore sure to make the Syria issue one of his key "asks" during his conversations with Obama on Thursday.

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Soner Cagaptay's Book

Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey Who Is a Turk? by Soner Cagaptay Routledge, 2006. 256 pp. $43.60 January 13, 2006 Details and Reviews...