Ahmet Davutoğlu: Turkey?s zero-problems foreign policy

Turkey?s zero-problems foreign policy

Foreign Policy (USA), May 20, 2010

By Ahmet Davutoglu

The Turkish government this week brokered an 11th-hour nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran. Turkey?s foreign minister explains the principles that made it possible.

Throughout modern history, there has been a direct relationship between conflict and the emergence of new ways of arbitrating world affairs. Every major war since the 17th century was concluded by a treaty that led to the emergence of a new order, from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that followed the Thirty Years? War, to the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815 that brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars, to the ill-fated Treaty of Versailles that concluded the first World War, to the agreement at Yalta that laid the groundwork for the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Yet the Cold War, which could be regarded as a global-scale war, ended not with grand summitry, but with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was no official conclusion; one of the combatant sides just suddenly ceased to exist.

ÖMER TAŞPINAR – Turkey?s Persian puzzle

ŞAHİN ALPAY – Nuclear crisis with Iran: Ankara and Brasilia show the way out

[Choosing the lesser evil] Nuclear balance of power versusperpetual conflict in the Middle East (1) by Mehmet Kalyoncu

MEPs consider allowing EU trade with northern Cyprus

European Voice (Belgium), 20.05.2010

By Toby Vogel

European Parliament to discuss controversial trade plans. The political leadership of the European Parliament will discuss on 10 June a controversial proposal that would enable the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus to trade directly with the European Union.

Turkey in Europe and beyond: the Cyprus issue

Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review (Turkey), Wednesday, May 19, 2010

David Hannay *

1. Pessimists have always outnumbered optimists so far as resolving the Cyprus problem is concerned ? and rightly so if you look back over the last 45 years of failed attempts to do just that, a diplomatic battlefield strewn with the withering bones of numerous U.N. secretary generals, U.N. special representatives, mediators and facilitators from the main Security Council operators and of course leaders of the two communities in Cyprus. Many of them walked away, pronouncing the problem insoluble. Despite myself spending seven years breaking my teeth on the basic intractability of the issues and on the challenge of getting the two Cypriot parties and their backers in Greece and Turkey to reach workable compromises on those issues, I am not one of that school of thought. The problem is, I believe, soluble.

New integration survey: ethnic Germans and immigrants on better terms than expected

Spiegel-Online (Germany)

5/20/2010

Germany often comes in for flak because of its allegedly poor integration of immigrants and the existence of so-called parallel societies. But a study released this week by a new think tank refutes the country?s bad reputation ? at least partially.

Analysis: Turkey’s Iran standoff role irks allies

Iran deal with Turkey shows weakness of Obama policy

The Quote of the Week: ?Adultery and Headscarf issue in Europeanizing Turkey? by Meltem Muftuler-Bac and Nora Fisher Onar

Excerpt from ?Women?s rights in Turkey as gauge of its European vocation: The impact of ?EU-niversal values? by Meltem Müftüler-Baç and Nora Fisher Onar, RECON Working paper, 2010.

This paper examines to what extent Turkish views converge with those expressed in the EU/Europe with regard to two recent debates over criminalisation of adultery, and veiling in public institutions. Based on extensive primary research, it shows that whilst secularists of all ideological backgrounds agree with the EU/European position, there is some ambivalence in Islamist perspectives. This was evident only in a limited fashion with the adultery debate. However, European Court of Human Rights verdicts upholding a secularist ban on veiling engendered deep disappointment in many Islamists, spurring some to conclude that ?EU-niversal? and Islamic values are incompatible.

Greek Cypriot leader, President Demetris Christofias (L) and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu (R) shake hands in front Former Australian foreign minister and present UN special envoy for Cyprus Alexander Downer before a U.N. sponsored social event in the buffer zone bisecting the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, May 25, 2010. Eroglu and Christofias are resuming Cyprus reunification talks on Wednesday after a two-month hiatus for Turkish Cypriot elections which were won by Eroglu, dislodging moderate Mehmet Ali Talat. Mediators are looking for a way to heal the decades-old split on Cyprus, which threatens Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.? Read more » REUTERS/Andreas Manolis

Turkey and Europe face the challenge of pluralism