Commentaries

Watershed moment in US-Turkey relations

Executive Summary:
President Joe Biden recognized atrocities committed against Armenians as the Armenian Genocide in his statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day  (24 April 2021). The statement represents a watershed moment in US-Turkey relations. President Tayyip Erdogan can address US and international concerns prior to the Biden-Erdogan summit on the margin of June’s NATO meeting, or he can double down and intensify repression against Turkey’s ethnic and religious minorities. Erdogan’s course will define international relations prior to the centennial of the founding of the Turkish republic in 2023.

Merkel’s  positive  agenda  has collapsed before it started 
Cengiz Aktar*

Executive Summary: 

The German Government is desperately trying since years to appease the  Turkish dictatorial regime to the expense of Turkish democrats but also  EU’s core values. Alas, as always with similar regimes appeasement doesn’t work. Today the more the EU appeases the more Erdoğan abuses.  

COMMENTARIES #3_Cengiz Aktar_ Merkel’s  positive  agenda  has collapsed before it started

Playing politics with the plight of refugees. How the EU went into Erdogan’s political receivership

Executive Summary: At the peak of the ‘refugee crisis’ in late 2015-early 2016, the EU reached an agreement with the Turkish government, known as the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey. It has served as a bone of contention between the EU and Turkey ever since its implementation. As anticipated by many experts, critical voices and NGOs in Turkey and Europe, the Facility has provided the Erdogan regime with a strategic tool to blackmail the EU without caring for the humanitarian needs.

“You sleep with the devil; you wake up in hell!”: On the new EU-Turkey Deal

Executive summary: Right from the start in 2016, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Amnesty International challenged the legitimacy of the so-called refugee deal between Turkey and the EU. Toward the end of 2020, the EU concluded another agreement with Turkey as part of the €6 billion in funding covered by the refugee deal, in spite of Turkey’s deteriorating human rights record. Against a backdrop of Turkey’s weaponizing of refugees against Europe and Europe’s treatment of the refugee issue as a local problem, the European border and coast guard organization Frontex has been practicing illegal pushbacks. It is clear that once you toy with the devil, you cannot escape hell.