Are the Kurds the Next Kingmakers in Turkey?

Burak Bekdil
May 11, 2020
Paper No. 1559

Between 1994 and 2015, the Kurdish vote in Turkey rose from 4.1% to 13.1%. A greying Turkey is facing a baby boom in Kurdistan: the Kurdish fertility rate, at 3.41, is a demographic weapon against the Turkish fertility rate of 2.09. These numbers suggest that Kurds could be the kingmakers in Turkey’s presidential election in 2023.

Turkey: Post-Coronavirus Challenges Are Likely to Hurt

Burak Bekdil
May 10, 2020
Paper No. 1558

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is faced with a dilemma: in order to avoid US sanctions, he must keep the S-400 system he purchased from Russia unopened, but doing so might open Turkey up to Russian sanctions. Erdoğan’s worst nightmare is President Donald Trump following through on his threat last year to “devastate the economy of Turkey.”

The Turkish Sultan’s Dubious Charm Offensive

Burak Bekdil
May 7, 2020
Paper No. 1554

Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, knows he needs to win Western public opinion in order to achieve international legitimacy. But try as he might, his propaganda efforts are instantly undone by his routine authoritarianism.

Turkey and the Libyan and Syrian Civil Wars

Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is constantly looking for opportunities to enhance its status as a regional superpower and promote its Islamist ideology in the Arab Middle East. Libya is the newest arena in which Erdoğan is trying to capitalize on inter-Arab rivalries, this time in service to his desire to lay claim to gas under the seabed of the Mediterranean.

Turkey and Coronavirus: Divided We Stand

Burak Bekdil
April 23, 2020
Paper No. 1539

The Erdoğan government in Turkey has banned fundraising efforts to fight the coronavirus in municipalities controlled by the opposition. It has frozen the bank accounts of the city of Istanbul and of soup kitchens, shut down hastily constructed coronavirus field hospitals, and cut off free bread distribution—all in opposition-controlled areas. The pandemic has forcefully reminded Turks how divided they remain—a division that is stopping them from coming together to stem a potential catastrophe that is national, not ideological.

Turkey Is Building a Geopolitical Alliance Between Sunni and Shiite Islamists

The recent news about the involvement of Iranian diplomats in the murder of an Iranian dissident in Turkey sparked a flare of international interest from within the all-encompassing coronavirus pandemic coverage, largely thanks to unflattering comparisons with coverage of the Jamal Khashoggi murder in 2018 (which the Iranian press promoted with gusto). The relative lack of interest in the crime from within Turkey itself reflects Ankara’s willingness to consort with Shiite Islamists to its own advantage.

Coming Home to Roost: War Threatens to Spill Beyond Syria’s Borders

As tens of thousands more refugees are shunted by Turkey toward Europe and a new phase of the brutal Syrian war unfolds, Russia, Turkey, the EU, and the international community are being handed the bill for a flawed short-term approach to the nine-year conflict that lacked empathy for the millions of victims and was likely to magnify rather than resolve problems.

Turkey’s Foreign Policy Blunders Deprive It of Critical Arms Systems

Burak Bekdil
March 31, 2020
Paper No. 1512

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s flagrant deviations from western democratic norms and badly calculated, neo-Ottoman zigzagging between NATO and non-NATO state actors have left Turkey deprived of critical air defenses, fighter jets, tanks, and other systems at a time when Ankara is giving signals that it wants to play hardball with a rising number of regional and other adversaries.

Erdoğan Battles on Multiple Fronts in Risky Regional Power Bid

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is at odds with just about everybody. He is on opposite sides with Russia in Syria as well as Libya and is trying the patience of his US and European allies. Turkey and Russia are testing the limits of what was always at best an opportunistic, fragile partnership aimed at capitalizing on a seemingly diminishing US interest in the Middle East, already evident under President Barack Obama and continuing under Donald Trump, who is haphazardly redefining what he sees as America’s national interests.

Turkey vs. Syria: A Culture of Enmity

The 290 Turkish soldiers killed in action on Syrian soil in recent years are a grim reminder of the unsettled questions that continue, after decades, to poison relations between the two neighboring countries.