A place in the sun or 15 minutes of fame? Understanding Turkey’s new foreign policy


Speaker: Sinan lgen
Chair: James Gray MP
Tuesday 18 January: 5-7pm


Turkey’s vote against additional UN Security Council sanctions on Iran last year was viewed by many observers as a sign that Turkey is drifting away from the West. In reality, Ankara’s relationship with the United States and the EU is much more complicated. There is no doubt that a reorientation of Turkish foreign policy is under way, an evolution that began after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to power in 2002. Ankara has become a more confident and assertive international player, vastly improved its relations with Arab neighbors, and grown its economy to the sixteenth largest in the world. With a balanced web of relations with other countries, the EU and the United States no longer occupy the central place in Turkey’s foreign policy. Ankara’s new diplomatic activism represents a transformation of Turkish foreign policy that needs deeper analysis.


Sinan lgen, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and chairman of Istanbul’s EDAM think-tank, will present the findings of his new Carnegie Europe paper ’A place in the sun or 15 minutes of fame Understanding Turkey’s new foreign policy’. lgen’s research and opinion pieces have been published by the Center for European Policy Studies, Center for European Reform, the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund, Brookings and the World Economic Forum as well as newspapers such as Le Figaro, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, European Voice and the International Herald Tribune. He is also the co-author of a book on Turkey-EU relations with Kemal Dervis.

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Paix sans Frontieres - Building Peace across Borders

Presentation by Conciliation Resources
Chair: Gary Streeter MP
Wednesday 19 January: 6-8pm

Many conflicts form part of wider, regional conflict systems and have significant cross-border dynamics. But policy responses still rely on nation states as central units of analysis and intervention. There is a ’peacebuilding gap’ across borders and in borderlands, where statehood and diplomacy often struggle to reach.

Conciliation Resources will present project findings and conclusions for international policy, and Accord authors will present case studies featured in the publication:

John Baptiste Odama, Archbishop of Gulu, Uganda - Regional civil responses to the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict

Ayesha Saeed, Researcher, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan - Trading for peace in Kashmir

For venue details of both meetings please contact us through this site.


About Us

TankThe All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues was officially registered on 21 December 2006. Co-chairs - Simon Hughes MP (Lib Dem), John McDonnell MP (Lab), Gary Streeter MP (Con); Secretary - Jeffrey Donaldson MP (DUP); Treasurer - Andy Slaughter MP (Lab)Photo Collage

The Secretariat to the APPG on Conflict Issues is supplied by Engi.