The European Council on Foreign Relations

The view from Istanbul.

Date: 16th November 2010  |  Author: Nicholas Walton,

Categories: Wider Europe,
Tags: esi, foreign policy , podcasts, the economist, turkey

Turkish foreign policy is notable at present - at least for the noise it is making. But is there more to it than the hyperactivity of Ahmet Davutoglu and some mightily impressive economic figures?

These are questions that I put to Gerald Knaus, ECFR Council Member and the chairman of the European Stability Initiative. He's not only one of the most insightful and intelligent commentators on Turkey at present, but also has the massive advantage of living and working in Istanbul itself. The result is the first podcast that we've been able to put out for a week - you can listen to it here - unfortunately, thanks to continued website transfer glitches it isn't on the podcast page of our website just yet. It is as ever available to subscribers (we've just hit 20,000 suscribers across all languages) on itunes or podhoster.com.

At ECFR Turkey is attracting an increasing amount of reflection. Many if not most members of staff remain convinced of the merits of eventual Turkish membership of the EU, but Turkey itself has evolved into a country that demands attention - this is one of the reasons why it plays a large role in our recent report, 'The spectre of a multipolar Europe'. I recorded a podcast on how Ankara fitted in with European security with the head of our Sofia office, Dimitar Bechev, that you can listen to here.

Gerald's organisation has done a lot of fascinating work on Turkey. ESI's lastest report is on 'A very special relationship. Why Turkey's EU accession process will continue'. After interviewing him we talked at length about much more, so hopefully I'll get him in front of an ECFR microphone again soon.

Plenty of others have also been waking up to Turkey as a player - The Economist recently devoted one of its special reports to the subject. Click here for an illuminating podcast interview with John Peet, the author of the report.

BBC Radio 4's sometimes-excellent Analysis series also took on Turkey a couple of episodes ago - it focused on the political underpinning of the AK party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and asked some interesting questions about the way the country was changing - from human rights to the roles of the military and Islam.

And to finish off, carrying on the theme of 'The spectre of a multipolar Europe' that Turkey is now up there with Russia as a security actor that the EU needs to engage with, here is a marvellous video of the Turkish Ottoman Military Band joining in with a Russian military classic. Let us know if you have any thoughts about Turkey or further recommendations for further reading and listening - this is obviously just a taster. Enjoy!

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