Transatlantic relations in the shade of missile shield With a meeting held at TEPAV transatlantic relations were discussed in the shade of the missile shield issue occupying the foreign policy agenda.
ANKARA - In the meeting hosted by TEPAV on 26 November 2010, transatlantic relations were discussed in the shade of the missile shield issue occupying the foreign policy agenda.
The meeting organized by TEPAV and Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ) was a pillar of the roundtable meetings series supported by German Marshall Fund of the United States - Black Sea Trust Fund for Regional Cooperation (BST). Participants of the meeting which hosted Mr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, The Heritage Foundation as the keynote speaker included Metehan Demir, Hurriyet daily Newspaper Ankara Representative, as well as representatives from diplomacy, politics and civil society among others.
Delivering the opening speech, Mr. Ariel Cohen referred to breaking points in relations between Turkey and the USA. Cohen underlined that the very first of these was the Parliament's rejection of the resolution to allow the deployment of Turkish soldiers in Iraq in March 1, 2003. Cohen stated that the other grey areas in relations were signified by Turkey's refusal to allow the passage of US aid ships during the Russia-Georgia conflict in 2008 and finally Turkey's signing the Tehran Agreement with Brazil on uranium swap with Iran. Maintaining that problems in Turkey-America relations emerged as a result of the said developments, Cohen underlined that similarly today NATO's missile defense system dominated the foreign policy agenda. Also touching upon Turkey's relations with Israel and Iran, Cohen argued in this context that certain concerns about Turkey began to rise across NATO.
Metehan Demir, Hurriyet daily Newspaper Ankara Representative, stressed that Turkey's foreign policy does not consist only of Israel and Iran and that it is not always easy to decide its allies also given the region it is located at. Underlining that the issues at debate change continuously, Mr. Demir underlined the difficulty of evaluating Turkey's foreign policy. Demir also stated that terrorism has always been a delicate subject for Turkey's foreign policy and constituted the disputed issues across the Middle East and touched upon the disappointment raised by the recent state of the EU accession process. The meeting continued with the discussion session with the questions and comments of the participants.
