The Turkey Analyst

Vol. 1 no. 20, 19 December 2008

ANALYSIS



Turkish Liberals Disenchanted with AKP, but Soul-Searching Has Yet to Come
Halil M. Karaveli
Turkey’s influential liberal intellectuals have become disenchanted with the ruling AKP, which they accuse of having abandoned its initial, reformist agenda. However, disappointed liberals have yet to acknowledge that events could have taken a different turn if they had chosen to exert a corrective influence on their Islamic conservative allies in the AKP. Above all, liberals who truly aspire to be a vanguard of freedom will have to revisit the question of secularism and its democratic implications.

Regeneration of Traditional Islamists Challenges the Political System
M. K. Kaya
The traditional Islamists of the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) are mounting a new challenge to the ruling, Islamic moderate AKP. For the first time since Turkey’s Islamic movement split into two parts – one moderate and reformist in the form of AKP and the other traditional in the form of the Felicity party – the former, victorious tendency could be facing a serious challenge from within its own core movement. A good showing of the Felicity party in the upcoming local elections would be likely to affect the internal balances of the Islamic movement.

NEWS DIGEST: THE FORTNIGHT IN REVIEW

I. What the Columnists Say
The initiative of a group of Turkish intellectuals to apologize to the Armenian people (www.ozurdiliyoruz.com) is stirring discussion among columnists. Writers in the mainstream media tend to express sympathy for the initiative to bring up the question of the fate of the Armenian people during the First World War, but they don’t subscribe to the notion that apologies are called for. But the most heated discussion concerns the allegations made by a Republican People’s Party MP that President Abdullah Gül, who has refrained from issuing any condemnation of the intellectuals’ initiative, is of partly Armenian extraction. The CHP parliamentarian Canan Aritman is subjected to severe criticism from almost all quarters.

II. Domestic News Digest

III. Foreign News Digest

The Turkey Analyst
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited and compiled under the supervision of Svante E. Cornell, Halil M. Karaveli, and M. K. Kaya.

The Turkey Analyst occasionally publishes guest analyses, which are normally solicited. Submissions are nevertheless welcome.

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The Joint Center
The Joint Center, created in 2005, is the product of the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

The Turkey Initiative
The Joint Center launched a Turkey Initiative in 2006 in order to improve understand of Turkish domestic and foreign affairs in Europe and the United States.

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