"Transatlantic Trends Survey" Discussed at TEPAV In a conference, held by TEPAV in collaboration with the German Marshall Fund, 'Transatlantic Trends Survey: 2010 Findings' was discussed.
ANKARA- TEPAV and the German Marshall Fund (GMF) organised a conference on September 17, 2010. In the conference held at TEPAV, Prof. Dr. Ian Lesser evaluated the results of the "Transatlantic Survey 2010".
In his speech, Lesser focused on the key findings of the survey which measured broad public opinion in the United States, Turkey, and 11 European Union countries. Lesser summarized the findings of survey which includes participants' views on global threats, foreign policy objectives and world leadership in the basic 6 sections:
"The Obama Puzzle - The Whole Is More than the Sum of its Parts, A Crisis of the Euro but not the European Union, A Continuing Divide on Transatlantic Security, Different Transatlantic Perspectives on the Rise of Asia, Turkey and the West - Drifting Away, Poland - An Outlier in the European Union."
Lesser stated the key findings by comparing the public opinions in Turkey, European Union and United States. While talking about the smilarities and differences of these countries' public opinions, Lesser referred to the rating about American President's aprroval in the survey. Lesser stated that inspite of the personal popularity, approval of President Barack Obama's foregn policies is low in the Transatlantic territory but also in Turkey this rate is much lower. Lesser added that Turkey gives less support to Obama's foreign policies on the relations with Middle East, Iran and Russia. While comparing the differences between Turkey with United States and European Union, Lesser put emphasis on Iran issue. Lesser talked about the outlook of Iran from Turkey is more different than the other Transatlantik countries.
Touching upon the results about economy, Lesser said that findings about the global economic crisis and raising of the unemployment were similar in Turkey, European Union and United States. Lesser stated the survey revealed that the people who live in the Transatlantic territory consider the crisis and unemployment as a threat to personal security
After the presentation of Lesser, there was a debate part in which participants of the conference assessed the findings of the survey. At this part debates that Turkey has been drifting away from the West came to fore. The discussions underlined that the survey also revealed this tendency while it is not definite towards were Turkey heads. It was maintained that the military and strategic cooperation between the United States and Turkey was not satisfactory and that commercial relations should be diversified and enriched. The weakening of the approval for Turkey's accession to European Union across public in Turkey was explained by the unwillingness of the EU in this respect. Among other issues raised by participants was that public opinion in Turkey became more internationalist rather than isolationist.
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