Some quick thoughts on Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s visit to Washington this week. -It is clear that Turkey and the United States have different approaches to Iran’s nuclear program. The United States is still calling for “zero enrichment” and is threatening additional sanctions if Iran does not cede to the P5+1 demands.
Hillary Clinton would have probably flown more miles this year had she not badly injured her wrist in a nasty State Department parking lot fall, but she still logged a very impressive 185,731 in flight miles so far this year.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is leading a delegation of top Turkish political and business leaders in Washington D.C. this week.
I just had the privilege of attending the swearing-in ceremony for my old friend David Huebner as the next US Ambassador to New Zealand. Demonstrating the importance of this appointment to the White House, Vice President Joe Biden gave the oath to the openly gay lawyer turned diplomat.
Peter Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation as well as the co-director of New America’s Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative, where Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst. This post was originally published at the AfPakChannel.
Al Majalla, the Arab magazine, recently published a special report on Turkey called “7 years of AKP Rule.” The report provides a variety of perspectives on Turkey’s political situation and the impact of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) seven years in power.
If one thing was obvious about President Obama’s speech on Tuesday night it was how complex the United States’ challenges in South Asia are.
Amidst the analysis of Turkey’s “eastern turn” and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) alleged ambivalence toward Europe, the ongoing political conflict among Turkey, Greece, Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, and the European Union over Cyprus remains the largest obstacle to Turkey’s European Union accession.
Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. Watching Al Jazeera English following President Obama’s Afghan speech, I was struck by Riz Kahn’s question about where Special Representative Richard Holbrooke fits into all of this.
This is a guest note by British Ambassador to Cuba Dianna Melrose.
