Between East and West: Turkey's Role in the Middle East and EU Accession Efforts

Strategically located at the crossroads of two continents, Turkey plays a unique role in regional and global politics. Turkey is not only an important ally of the United States but is also a diplomatic conduit to such countries as Syria and Iran. For quite some time now, Turkey has also been a contender for European Union membership. In this November 17, 2009 lecture Dr. Soner Cagaptay, Senior Fellow and Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, discusses Turkey's role in the Middle East and its EU accession efforts.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Soner Cagaptay
• Turkey
• European Union
• Middle East
• Europe
• AKP
• Justice and Development Party
• fiu
• miami
• sipa

[Avicenna1985]

I noticed how the speaker mentioned the suffering of the Chechens, while at the same time didn't mention the suffering of the Kurds, he even called them terrorists.

[1sthighkick]

Actually, if Turkey becomes a member in EU, the only people who are most likely to flee the country are the Kurds.

Soner totally marginalized the issue of Human Rights in this presentation.

[AntiKyrgyz]

@Avicenna1985 actually that is false, history and current archeological findings(carbon dating) proved that turks were in the west long before 1071, we migrated there before christ, sumerians were of oghuz turkic origin related to Turkmen, do search of Kantura-KETURA maid of ABRAHAM. Read story of Gilgamish-its actually Bilgamish-it means knowledge. Kurds migrated from india, through persia, they are related to yezidis, a peoplE who have customs, religion and traditions very close to hindus.

[Avicenna1985]

@AntiKyrgyz Are you kidding me? Kurds are more indigenous to the Middle East than the Turks who came from Central Asia/Mongolia.

[AntiKyrgyz]

@Avicenna1985 kurds engage in seperatist terrorism. They ere not indigenous to anatolia, they migrated from iraq in the 1990s.

[Dehax]

@Avicenna1985 Killer of innocents always will be terrorist.

[61talya]

@1453ANGEL He is not anti-Turkish he just has an unbiassed views and analogy of the direction Turkey is taking recently

[61talya]

@1453ANGEL You may not like what he is saying, but the fact is since Erdogans administration took over in 2002, Turkey has become closer to Iran and farther from the West. This may have something to do with EU constantly rejecting Turkey accession and its anti-Israel stance the country has taken even before the Flotilla incident.

[61talya]

@MGreyWolfM No he is Turkish, he was just interviewed by Congress for he'll be working in some foreign affairs dept or something.

[MGreyWolfM]

@1453ANGEL the guy is probs armenian pretending to be a turk so he doesnt look racist.