Centre for Turkey Studies and Chatham House Joint Forum
‘TURKEY AND THE ARAB WORLD: AMBITION AND EVOLUTION’
June 2012, Chatham House
The Centre for Turkey Studies held a joint event with world renowned think-tank Chatham House. The event was chaired by Sir David Logan KCMG, former British Ambassador to Turkey (1997-2001). The speakers were Mr Taha Ozhan – Director General of the SETA foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, Columnist Lale Kemal of daily Today’s Zaman, Taraf and Jane’s Defence Weekly, Dr Fuat Keyman– Director of the Istanbul Policy Centre and Mr Fadi Hakura- Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
At this members event, the issues of Turkey’s relations with its Arab neighbours were discussed. The speakers highlighted both the developments and changes with specific focus on how Turkey has dealt with the issues, such as the rapid economic changes and some areas of conflict within the Arab world. The first event lasted for one hour and emphasised Turkey’s strained relations with Syria, their recent economic developments, as well as the Kurdish issue, and concluded with a Question and Answer session with participants from the audience.
After the first event, a selected few were invited to join a three hour round table discussion in which issues surrounding Turkey’s foreign policy were discussed in more detail under these discussion topics: recent political activity, economic and security.
For further information on this event and the full recording and transcript please visit: http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/184081.
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