#Turkey

Aug 25, 2016

Putin and Erdogan Do a Deal (sort of)

On 15 August, the Russian and Turkish Presidents met in St Petersburg. This was their first encounter since their two countries’ bilateral relations went very seriously south after Turkey shot down a Russian jet in November 2015. The two leaders made all sorts of nice noises about their commitment to repairing their relations after the fall-out of recent months. But it was clear that Putin, interested in wresting Turkey from its western moorings of now well over half a centur

Aug 3, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 4: Where do Turkey’s relations with the West go from here?

In the wake of the coup, Erdogan has thrown down gauntlets to the US and the EU that they will have difficulty picking up. First, Erdogan has demanded the extradition of Fethullah Gulen arguing that he instigated the coup of 15 July. The US is demanding proof. A Minister in the Turkish government has accused Washington of complicity in the coup. Another cabinet member has likened Gulen to Bin Laden. He did not evoke Islamic State (IS) but he could have. At the same time, ther

Aug 2, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 3: The turn towards authoritarianism

The third blog in this series looks at the transition of Erdogan and his AKP party to an overtly Islamist stance It is hard to pinpoint with any exactitude when, let alone why, Recip Erdogan transformed from being a figure seeking to modernize Turkey and its institutions to one pursuing a backward-looking Islamist agenda. Some analysts hold that Erdogan may have been a closet Islamist from the early stages of his career. It is a fact, however, that in 1998, after spending ten

Jul 29, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 2: The Erdogan-Gulen Connection

This, the second in a four-part series on the coup in Turkey, looks at the relationship between the erstwhile allies, President Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish clerical leader living in Pennsylvania, who has been accused of instigating the coup. In his remarkable rise to power, Erdogan has been allied with the Gulen Movement and its leader Fethullah Gulen, a leader of a vast organization that has promoted education in Turkey and in many other countries around the world

Jul 28, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 1: The Remarkable Rise of Recip Erdogan

Against the backdrop of the coup in Turkey, this blog looks at the impressive ascendency of the Turkish President. It is the first in a four-part series. Turkish President Recip Erdogan has had nothing less than a scintillating political career. From very humble beginnings, this erstwhile semi-professional football player was Mayor of Istanbul (a city of some fifteen million people) from 1994 to 1998, then Prime Minister of Turkey (a country of almost eighty million) for more

Jan 7, 2016

Towards a Grand Anti-terrorist Coalition: Part 2

This second blog in a series of three looks at the ongoing efforts to put together a grand anti-terrorist coalition. January 2016 will see a major new phase in the efforts of the international community to reach a settlement in Syria. On 25 January, the 17-member International Syria Support Group (ISSG) will gather in Geneva armed with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, agreed just before the holiday break. This calls for Syrian unity and independence, a cease-fire, a negot

Dec 16, 2015

Unsavory Alliances: The Struggle for Power in Iraq and the Levant, and beyond: Part I

If we forget for a moment, the Islamic State (IS), al-Qaeda and their sundry allies and accomplices, there are essentially two alliances on offer in and around the hotly embattled Middle East. One is that led by the United States, set up in 2014 in response to the rapid rise of IS. This is a highly loose construct. The total number of members in this alliance has been said to number sixty-five. But the states intervening in the US framework against IS in Iraq and Syria with a

Oct 21, 2015

Russia, Syria, Ukraine – and the Rest of the World

Putin’s objectives in Syria have as much or more to do with Russian concerns about developments in the former Soviet Union as with the situation in and around Syria. But the overall thrust of his Syrian campaign can have an impact well beyond that. First and foremost, Putin is trying to project power abroad in an effort to compensate for the fading effectiveness of the model of growth and governance that have been associated with his now fifteen years at and near the pinnacle

David M Law

The Way I See it

David M Law

The Way I See it