Can the U.S.-Turkish Relationship Be Repaired?

Over the past two years, relations between Ankara and Washington have cooled. The Iraq war bolstered anti-Americanism in Turkey, while many Americans reassessed their relationship with Ankara after Turkey's parliament voted to prohibit American forces from entering Iraq via Turkey. More recently, Turkish officials say Washington ignores anti-Turkish terrorism and allows the Iraqi Kurds a free hand in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Public debate in Turkey has grown particularly shrill, with one parliamentarian having even accused the United States of genocide in Iraq. Is it possible to overcome the distance that has grown between the two nations since the Iraq war began?

Robert Pollock, senior editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal, Murat Mercan, founding member and deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and AEI scholars Richard Perle and Michael Rubin will address irritants in the U.S.-Turkish relationship and how both countries might rebuild their relationship.

About the Author

 

Richard
Perle
  • Richard Perle served as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, and a staff member to Senator Henry Jackson (D-Wash.). Mr. Perle is coauthor of An End to Evil (Random House, 2003) and author of Hard Line, a political novel. He codirected AEI's Commission on Future Defenses.
  • Email: rperle@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Gay Gill
    Phone: 3016560390

 

Michael
Rubin
  • Michael Rubin's major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society. He also writes frequently on transformative diplomacy and governance issues. At AEI, Mr. Rubin chaired the "Dissent and Reform in the Arab World" conference series. He was the lead drafter of the Bipartisan Policy Center's 2008 report on Iran. In addition to his work at AEI, several times each month, Mr. Rubin travels to military bases across the United States and Europe to instruct senior U.S. Army and Marine officers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan on issues relating to regional state history and politics, Shiism, the theological basis of extremism, and strategy.

     

  • Phone: 202-862-5851
    Email: mrubin@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Ahmad Majidyar
    Phone: 202-862-5845
    Email: ahmad.majidyar@aei.org
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