An Obama Policy toward Turkey: Continuity or Change?

Mavi Boncuk |
An Obama Policy toward Turkey: Continuity or Change?
Featuring Soner Cagaptay, Mark Parris, and Ian Lesser
February 18, 2009

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Soner Cagaptay | Mark Parris | Ian Lesser | Q&A

The Obama administration faces a number of imminent decisions in developing U.S. policy toward Turkey. Should Washington choose sides in Turkey’s protracted struggle over secularism and democracy involving the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its opponents? Can the United States bring the reluctant AKP to support U.S. efforts on issues ranging from Iran’s nuclear program to Russian regional ambitions?

To discuss these issues, The Washington Institute invited Soner Cagaptay, Mark Parris, and Ian Lesser to address a special Policy Forum on February 18, 2009.

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Institute’s Turkish Research Program. A visiting professor at Georgetown University, he recently spent four months in Turkey researching and writing on Turkish foreign and domestic policy.

Mark Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, is counselor to the Turkey Project and visiting fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

Ian Lesser is a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, focusing on Turkey and the U.S.-Turkey-EU triangle.

Labels: PolicyWatch, politics