US-Turkish relations under Obama: Promise, challenge and opportunity in the 21st century

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 93-108

  Kalin, Ibrahim ^a  

^a Vekaletler Caddesi   (Turkey)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77951648842     PISSN: 19448953     EISSN: 19448961     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/19448950903507529     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. New York Times, 17 February 2003.
2. For the smart power programme run by Joseph Nye and Richard Armitage, see, http://www. csis.org/smartpower. The Report called 'A Smarter, More Secure America', which can be obtained from the same page, outlines the new parameters of smart power for American policy-makers.
3. There is a growing literature on the rise of the non-Western block as an economic and political powerhouse. See, for instance, A. Amsden, The Rise of 'The Rest': Challenges to the West from LateIndustrializing Economies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003 where the author argues that the nonliberal and non-free market policies of major non-Western countries have helped their economy grow and political systems remain stable. Fareed Zakaria's new book The Post-American World draws attention to the rise of the rest but rightly concludes that the USA will continue to be the main competitive world power in economy, science, education and other areas.
4. Amsden, op. cit.
5. J. Habermas, The Divided West, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008, p. 33.
6. Habermas, op. cit., p. 35.
7. T. V. Paul, 'Introduction', Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century, in T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz and Michael Fortmann (eds), Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, p. 3.
8. R. Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 3.
9. T. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005. Friedman makes an argument for the total flattening of the world, which does not hold for most of the world. Friedman's thesis is based on the assumption that the current mode of global development is somehow even and uniform. The widening gap between the rich and the poor suggests abundant evidence to the contrary.
10. P. Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007. Collier provides a sound analysis of the causes of global poverty and its regional impact. The problem of poverty in the Muslim world needs a separate study.
11. See 'A Reluctant Neighbour: Analyzing Turkey's Role in the Middle East' held on 1-2 June 1994. For the Report, see, .
12. For more on this, see Z. Öniş 'Turkey in the post-cold war era: in search of identity', Middle East Journal, 48(1), 1995, pp. 48-68
13. Şule Kut, 'Soǧuk Savasş Sonrasi{dotless} Türk Di{dotless}ş Politikasi{dotless}ni{dotless}n Ana Hatlari{dotless}', in Şule Kut and GencerO ̈ zcan (eds), En Uzun On Yi{dotless}l: Türkiye'nin Ulusal ve Di{dotless}ş Politika Gündeminde Doksanli{dotless} Yi{dotless}llar, Boyut Kitaplari{dotless}, Istanbul, 1998, pp. 45-64.
14. For an analysis of the new Turkish foreign policy from this point of view, see K. Kiri̧ci, 'The transformation of Turkish foreign policy: the rise of the trading state', New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 40,2009, pp. 29-57.
15. H. Fidan and R. Nurdun, 'Turkey's role in the global development assistance community: the case of TIKA (Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency)', Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 10(1), 2008, pp. 93-111.
16. Bulent Aras and Hakan Fidan, 'Turkey and Eurasia: frontiers of a new geographic imagination', New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 40, 2009, pp. 195-217.
17. For a lively debate about Turkish soft power, see the articles in the special issue of Insight Turkey, 10(2), 2008.
18. See A. Davutoǧlu, Stratejik Derinlik: Turkiye'nin Uluslararasi{dotless} Konumu [Strategic Depth: Turkey's International Position], Kure, Istanbul, 2001. For more on this in English, see Ahmet Davutoglu, 'Turkey's foreign policy vision: an assessment of 2007', Insight Turkey, 10(1), 2008, pp. 77-96.
19. Davutoǧlu, 'Turkey's foreign policy vision', pp. 79-83.
20. See I. Kalin, 'Turkey and the Middle East: ideology or geopolitics?', Private View, 2008, pp. 26-35.
21. Turkey still needs to improve its record of civil liberties and democratic rights on the Kurdish issue, the Alevis, non-Muslim religious minorities and freedom of conscience. For Turkey's security concept, see the essays in N. A. Guney, Contentious Issues of Security and the Future of Turkey, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007.
22. Cf. Y. Bozdaglioglu, 'Modernity, identity and Turkey's foreign policy', Insight Turkey, 10(1), 2008, pp. 55-76.
23. H. Kosebalaban, 'The rise of Anatolian cities and the failure of modernization paradigm', Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 16(3), 2007, pp. 229-240.
24. See, among others, E. Özbudun, 'From political Islam to conservative democracy: the case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey', South European Society and Politics, 11(3/4), 2006, pp. 543-557.
25. This is confirmed by US officials. Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 15 March 2007, Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said the following: 'Secretary Rice instructed me to seek to shift the focus of the U.S.-Turkey relationship from just managing challenges to finding ways the United States and Turkey can work together in the world on issues where we agree. Turkey, a majority Muslim state, with a tradition of secular governance, a deepening democracy and a thriving free market is of strategic importance to the United States. Its legacy of modernization can inspire people throughout the broader Middle East', .
26. Address to the Council on Foreign Relation on 15 July 2009, .
27. Cf. I. Lesser, Beyond Suspicion: Rethinking US-Turkish Relations, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington, DC, n.d., pp. 22-25.
28. For an assessment of the Iraq 2003 episode in US-Turkish relations, see W. Hale, Turkey, the US and Iraq, Saqi and London Middle East Institute, London, 2007.
29. For the recent Kurdish initiative, which the Erdoǧan Government has officially called 'Democratic Initiative', see T. Özhan, 'Between social integration and political dissociation: Turkey's Kurdish issue perception', Today's Zaman, 9 September 2009.
30. A major study on the Kurdish issue by SETA and Pollmark shows that Turkey has a chance to find a lasting solution to the Kurdish issue but will have to utilize all of its resources to overcome the barrage of misperceptions and prejudices that seem to deepen among Turks and Kurds. For the report see B. Aras et al., Turkiye'nin Kurt Sorunu Algi{dotless}si{dotless} [The Turkish Perception of the Kurdish Issue], SETA, Ankara, 2009.
31. See the joint report by DEIK and TAIK entitled 'Turkey brief: Turkish-US relations' (March 2008), available at, .
32. For the NABUCCO project and the energy agreements between Turkey and Russia, see B. Aras and E. Iseri, The NABUCCO Natural Gas Pipeline: From Opera to Reality, misctext SETA Policy Brief, No. 34, 2009 and B. Aras, Turkey and the Russian Federation: An Emerging Multidimensional Partnership, SETA Policy Brief, No. 35, 2009; both briefs are available at, .
33. For an overview of these issues in the context of US-Turkish relations, see The Obama Presidency: A View from Turkey, SETA Policy Brief, No. 29, 2009,
34. For the failure of the Bush Road Map for Peace, see N. Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Penguin Books, London, 2004, pp. 173-185.
35. For a useful overview of Turkey's involvement in Palestine, see M. A. Baykan, 'The Palestinian question in Turkish foreign policy from the 1950s to the 1990s', International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25(1), 1993, pp. 91-110.
36. For an assessment of the Palestinian issue under the Obama administration, see I. Kalin, 'The Israeli-Palestinian encounters: trauma, truth and politics', in A. Vasconcelos (ed.), The European Union Institute for Security Studies, EUISS, Paris, 2009, pp. 167-185.