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Channel: Turkey – Spotlight on Geopolitics
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“The mother of all problems”

What do Turkey, a non EU member, Spain and Romania have in common ? All three countries are currently affected by the re-emergence of powerful ethnic conflicts. Not long ago, the Catalunians took to...

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“Erdogan Buries Ataturk”

This is the title used by Istanbul-based “Zaman” to announce Mr. Erdogan’s victory in the constitutional referendum which took place on September 12. At first glance, the headline appears an...

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Egypt: Ex Oriente Lux

 After almost one week of tribulations, the European Commission has officially announced that it will put together aid packages to help smooth Tunisia’s and Egypt’s transition to democracy. The United...

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Syria’s monarchic republic

Assad family’s Syria has been credited by an Arab expert, wrongly I believe, with being the political model emulated by the likes of Hosni Mubarak, Saddam Hussein or Ali Saleh. The same expert calls...

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EU and the Arab uprisings in geopolitical perspective

The ongoing turmoil in the Arab world is sadly being shadowed by a relatively minor refugee crisis. There are a lot of misgivings voiced in the media and even in the blogosphere about the negative...

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A beacon of Islamic democracy

When it comes to geopolitics, few major shifts are more important than the emergence of an Islamic democracy in Turkey. Long resisted by the Turkish military and its western allies, the accession to...

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Turkey, the indispensable negotiating partner

 Over the last two weeks, Turkish diplomacy went all out to capitalise on the country’s increasing international clout. President Abdullah Gul has made a 4-day visit to Germany, Turkey’s main European...

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The Eurasian Union: two competing geopolitical visions

The implosion of the Soviet Union has in many ways adversely affected the stability of the Central Asian republics like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. Since 1991, a loose alliance...

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Hedging one’s bets

At the periphery of the European  Union,  two  candidates for membership are trying to hedge their geopolitical bets.  Turkey, the largest of the two, is a long-standing  NATO  member but has also...

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Opposition-sponsored social turmoil

That the EU’s democracies are in crisis, courtesy of the global financial markets and the troika, is by now clear to all. These threats to democracy, however, are external. A more dangerous challenge...

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Egypt and the ” dictator factory”

It might seem odd to some of my regular readers that I have avoided tackling the latest developments in Egypt or Syria. Alas, geopolitics also deals with spheres of influence, and I am usually writing...

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Making Room for Alternative Democracies

The landslide success of Erdogan’s party, the AKP, and Vladimir Putin’s skyrocketing domestic popularity in the wake of the Crimean crisis are golden opportunities for a rethink of Western...

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Does the Eurasian Union have enlargement potential ?

The recently-signed Eurasian Union agreement between Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan in Astana has brought into being the world’s newest trade bloc, as envisaged by President Putin since 2010. The...

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Turkey invited to join Eurasian Union

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan has officially invited Turkey to become a member of the new Eurasian Union during a 2-day conference on the 4th and 5th of June 2014 which took place in the...

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Turkey: time to mend diplomatic fences with Egypt

Turkey has today announced its budget for 2015. Total spending is estimated at 225 billion dollars, whereas revenue is expected to be around 216 billion USD, leaving a deficit of only 9 billion USD....

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The migrant crisis and EU border fences

A few days ago while seeing the hundreds of refugees from the Middle East flock on Greek ferries, buses, taxis and trains in their drive north to the Macedonian border, I recalled a 20-page seminar...

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Turkey still a model for Arab youth

Saturday’s horrific terrorist attack in Ankara where more than 100 people lost their lives brings to mind similar gruesome deeds, from New York in 2001 or London in 2007. The similarities between these...

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EU: no silver-bullet solution for the migrant crisis

The recent flurry of diplomatic activity by EU leaders who are trying to slow down the migrant influx has not as yet yielded any tangible results. In truth, the situation has become so complicated that...

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The “New Europe” NATO summit in Bucharest

The fact that the EU is undergoing its most profound existential crisis ever is by now an open secret. The Greek debt crisis had produced a North-South divide in Europe, whereas the migrant crisis has...

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Turkey’s confused geopolitics

The downing of a Russian jet over Syria by the Turkish military brings to a sad conclusion a hitherto promising international relations agenda, whose author was none other than Ahmet Davutoglu, the...

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