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Past Event

A Foreign Policy and Center on the United States and Europe Event

Back to the Future: U.S.-Turkish Relations after the Bush Presidency

Turkey, Foreign Policy


Event Summary

The Bush years arguably have not been the best of times for America’s decades-long relationship with Turkey. A much-ballyhooed strategic partnership unraveled in March 2003 when Turkey’s parliament failed to authorize the U.S. to invade Iraq from Turkish soil. The Bush Administration’s approval ratings in Turkey later plummeted to single digits. In public opinion polls, Turks routinely came to identify the United States as Turkey’s greatest security threat, even as President Abdullah Gul came to Washington on January 8 for the first official visit by a Turkish head of state in a dozen years for a meeting with White House officials. What can the next Administration do to get on the right track with a partner whose enduring importance to U.S. has been convincingly reaffirmed by the Bush experience?

Event Information

When

Thursday, January 31, 2008
10:30 AM to 12:00 PM

Where

Room 1026/28
Service Employees International Union Building
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
Map

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On January 31, Brookings hosted its final panel discussion with some leading Turkish experts to assess the Bush Administration’s impact on U.S.-Turkish relations, and what lessons can be drawn from this often tumultuous period. Speakers included two members of Turkish Parliament: former Ambassador Gunduz Aktan (MHP) and Dr. Suat Kiniklioglu (AKP); and former Turkish Foreign Minister Emre Gonensay.  Mark R. Parris, director of the Turkey 2007 Project and former ambassador to Turkey, moderated. Turkey 2007 has been organized in partnership with TUSIAD, the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association.

Transcript

MARK PARRIS:  There is no question that Prime Minister Erdogan's November 5th meeting with President Bush and the subsequent open cooperation among the United States, Turkey, and Iraq against PKK terrorism have fundamentally changed certainly the feel and probably the underlying dynamics of U.S.-Turkish relations. I saw some poll numbers a few days ago that U.S. approval ratings in Turkey have jumped from single digits to the mid-30s in a scant three months. When Abdullah Gul was here, the two sides seemed to be trying to outdo one another in their use of that much abused term "strategic partnership." The turnaround has been so breathtakingly abrupt, in fact, that one has to wonder why it seemed so hard for so long.

The past five years have been the most difficult in U.S.-Turkish relations in a generation, and it's appropriate as the Bush Administration enters its last year and as America and the world look ahead to who might take up the helm in Washington next year for us to pause and to take stock. How did things go so wrong in a relationship that once seemed so solidly founded? How could things turn around so dramatically since last fall? What lessons should Bush's successors draw from the arc of U.S.-Turkish relations from 2002 to 2008 if they are to do better?

Participants

Moderator

Mark R. Parris

Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy

Panelists

Ambassador (ret.) Gunduz Aktan

Member of Turkish Parliament, National Movement Party (MHP)

Dr. Emre Gonensay

Former Foreign Minister of Turkey

Dr. Suat Kiniklioglu

Member of Turkish Parliament, Justice and Development Party (AKP)


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