Vladimir Putin's Next European Front
By Svante Cornell
Clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia this week claimed at least 60 lives in the most intense fighting between the neighbors since a 1994 cease-fire “froze” their conflict. Tensions seemed to de-escalate by Wednesday, but clearly the war between Azeris and Armenians is no longer frozen. At stake is the future of a sensitive region dominated by the Kremlin and crisscrossed by Eurasia’s larger political and ideological faultlines.
March 29, 2016
NATO Must Demand More From Turkey
By Halil M. Karaveli
Turkey has always been an awkward NATO member. Since it joined in 1952, the country has rarely lived up to official alliance standards of democracy and human rights. During most of this time, Turkey has been ruled by authoritarian governments. Even when elected governments were in power, Turkey was at best an illiberal “democracy” as right-wing authoritarianism and rigid nationalism were always influential. In that sense, there is nothing that is new with Turkey’s authoritarian “drift” today.
Svenska Dagbladet, March 19, 2016.
Svante E. Cornell, Turkiet är ett hot – inte en potentiell EU-medlem.
EU borde akta sig för att knyta för nära band med Erdogans auktoritärt styrda Turkiet. Landet borgar inte för fred och säkerhet just nu. Tvärtom. Svante Cornell menar att det borde vara uteslutet att ens diskutera turkiskt EU-medlemskap medan hundratusentals kurder drivs från sina hem i sydöstra Turkiet.
Svante E. Cornell is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.
Foreign Affairs, March 2, 2015.
Halil Karaveli: Turkey's Decline. Ankara Must Learn From Its Past to Secure Its Future.
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011, Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkish minister of foreign affairs and now prime minister, vowed that Turkey would be the “game setter” of the Middle East. Today, such notions of grandeur seem outrageous.
Halil M. Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Turkey Initiative at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and managing editor of its publication The Turkey Analyst.
By Vladimir Socor
ISDP Policy Brief no. 191
December 22, 2015
The year now ending marked a milestone in Kazakhstan’s rapprochement with the European Union. On December 21, 2015 in Astana, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, and Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yerlan Idrissov, signed the EU-Kazakhstan Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. This new-generation Agreement replaces and upgrades an earlier, less ambitious document. Kazakhstan is the first Central Asian country to achieve this status vis-a-vis the European Union. This status puts Kazakhstan ahead of Russia in terms of official relations with the EU; moreover, the Kazakhstan-EU relationship is trouble-free.
By Michael Emerson
ISDP Policy Brief no. 190
December 21, 2015
Click here for the PDF version of the Policy Brief
On December 21, 2015, the European Union and the Republic of Kazakhstan signed the new Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in the Kazakh capital, Astana. The new agreement replaced the original one that has been in force since 1999 and it is considered as a significant step for both sides to advance relations and strengthen political and economic cooperation. This development took place in a year when Kazakhstan joined to the World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, the two agreements are deeply inter-locked: the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement was signed only on condition and after Kazakhstan's accession on WTO. However, Kazakhstan is also a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union, which complicates its relationship with the European Union.
By Johan Engvall and Svante E. Cornell
ISDP Policy Brief no. 189, December 17, 2015
In the past two years, Kazakhstan has joined the World Trade Organization, obtained a seat at the Asia-Europe Meeting, signed an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union, announced it would host the EXPO-2017 in Astana, and launched a bid for a rotating seat at the United Nations Security Council. This extraordinary high frequency of international engagements is remarkable, but it represents a difference in degree and not nature in Kazakhstan’s diplomatic history. Indeed, since the fall of the Soviet Union Kazakhstan has developed a record of being the most proactive and innovative former Soviet republic in the sphere of international cooperation.
Svenska Dagbladet, December 12, 2015.
Svante Cornell: EU gör säkerhetspolitiskt självmål mot Turkiet
Det är ett misstag att tro att Turkiet närmar sig Väst, trots att landet redan är en del av Nato och att EU för samtal om medlemskap. President Erdogan går i en helt annan riktning och Europa borde inse att hans politik innebär säkerhetsrisker.
by S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell
In 2015, the EU revised its Strategy for Central Asia, and finalized an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Kazakhstan. These welcome steps will not turn the EU into a regional powerhouse overnight, but provide the EU with a platform to play a constructive role in Central Asia. The EU can achieve that if it avoids focusing on issues where it has little hope of direct influence, such as regional security affairs and domestic governance. Instead, to gain such a role eventually, the EU should focus on revitalizing the promise of its visionary initiative of the 1990s – the Transport Corridor linking Europe to Asia via the Caucasus and Central Asia – which it allowed to slip, handing the initiative to other powers, primarily China.
September 11, 2015
Turkey's Military Rulers
By Halil M. Karaveli
GOTHENBURG, Sweden — Many commentators have interpreted the decision of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to restart the war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., as designed to undo the results of the June 7 general election. The ruling Justice and Development Party, also known as the A.K.P., was deprived of its majority in Parliament when the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P., surged at the polls.
Svante E. Cornell and M.K. Kaya
Current Trends in Islamist Ideology
http://hudson.org/research/11601-the-naqshbandi-khalidi-order-and-political-islam-in-turkey
In the past two decades, Turkey has emerged on the global scene. It has enjoyed dramatic economic growth that has catapulted it into the exclusive G20 club of major economies; and under the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey has enjoyed unprecedented political stability. For the past fifteen years, the AKP has formed a single-party government, a remarkable feat given Turkey’s tumultuous politics.