Aslı Aydıntaşbaş

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is a fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and the director of The Turkey Project. She is also a senior associate fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Prior to joining the foreign policy community in 2016, Aydıntaşbaş had a long career in journalism, during which she focused on Turkey, its domestic evolution, and foreign policy in an age of regional reshuffling and geopolitical competition. Aydıntaşbaş combined her tenure in Turkish media with overseas assignments and international commentary, straddling between Turkey and the United States.

From 2016-24, she was a Global Opinions columnist for The Washington Post. In her columns for The Post, Aydıntaşbaş tried to document Turkey’s emergence as a regional power with a quest for strategic autonomy, the changing nature of Turkey’s relations with its trans-Atlantic partners, as well as the country’s democratic backsliding. Aydıntaşbaş contextualized Turkey’s drift towards illiberalism with the decline of the rules-based liberal international order and the onset of great power competition, facilitated domestically by the rebirth of a non-aligned Turkish ideology.

Aydıntaşbaş is a regular commentator on Turkey for international media and her articles have appeared in the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Politico, and Newsweek. Aydıntaşbaş wrote a regular bi-weekly column at Turkish daily Cumhuriyet (2016-18), at Milliyet (2008-15), and hosted the popular daily television show “Karşı Gündem” on CNN Turk (2013-15), which featured discussions on Turkey’s domestic polarization, reforms, as well as regional issues like the Arab Spring. Aydıntaşbaş has covered Turkey’s EU accession process, reform agenda, relations with Washington, and the Iraq war in various stints during 1997-2008 as a Washington and New York correspondent, as well as an Ankara bureau chief.

As a senior policy fellow at ECFR from 2016 onwards, she worked on similar themes in the policy space, with a particular focus on Turkey’s relations with the European Union, with Russia, and its re-positioning in the Middle East and North Africa region. As Ankara’s traditional focus on trans-Atlantic ties was revised for a more assertive and autonomous regional positioning, Aydıntaşbaş explored Turkey’s policy on Syria, its military deployment in Libya, and state of relations with neighbors.

Her recent publications include “Turkey and Israel risk sliding towards confrontation” in the Financial Times; “Axis of Unease: What Europeans should do to manage Turkey-Israel rivalry” for ECFR; the foreword to the Brookings Turkey debate series, “Re-energizing the Turkey debate in Washington,” and other Brookings publications, including, “How has Turkey changed after Imamoglu’s arrest”, “Empowered abroad, Erdogan arrests his top domestic rival,” and “Understanding Turkey’s response to the Israel-Gaza crisis.”

She has been a frequent commentator on Turkey and the Middle East for international media and was the co-host of “Swamp Chronicles,” a mini-podcast series on U.S. elections in 2024.  

Aydıntaşbaş is a graduate of Bates College, where she was the recipient of Maung Maung Gyi Award for Excellence in International Relations and received her master’s in journalism and Middle East studies at New York University.

Affiliations:

• Berlin Bosphorus Initiative, member, advisory board
• Economic and Foreign Relations Board, EDAM, member
• European Council on Foreign Relations, senior associate fellow