Engaging Turkey Initiative
Following in the footsteps of earlier ISD initiatives to strengthen Europe’s engagement with its neighbours, Beyond NATO and EU Enlargement: A New Transatlantic Track of Strategic Engagement with Turkey looks to place a new focus on relations with Turkey. This project seeks not to supplant but to complement the existing EU enlargement and NATO tracks of engagement. As Turkey strives to assert its geostrategic position in its neighbouring regions, developing its own ‘neighbourhood’ policy to enhance its spheres of influence, it is necessary – and advantageous – for both Europe and the United States to open an additional track of strategic engagement with Turkey.
Given the stagnation in both the EU and NATO tracks of engagement, there is a need for a transatlantic dialogue with Turkey that moves beyond the narrower spheres of EU accession and NATO co-operation. It is vital for Europe and the US to adjust to the reality of Turkey’s evolving geo-strategic position and to engage accordingly if they wish to maintain Turkey’s western interests and commitment. This project will begin by creating a Task Force to explore the establishment of a new geo-strategic track of engagement with Turkey that would potentially lead to practical partnership in the resolution of wider regional problems.
The project is being organised in conjunction with the Brookings Institution, with the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Recent Events
Engaging Turkey Initiative
Meeting of the Turkey Task Force
12 - 13 April 2013
Instanbul
Engaging Turkey Initiative
Meeting of the Energy Expert Group
15 March 2013
London
Talking Turkey: Can Europe ‘get on the same page’?
A Round Table Discussion
16 April 2012
London
Beyond NATO and EU Enlargement: A New Track of Strategic Engagement with Turkey
Inaugural Workshop
13 - 14 September 2011
London
All Engaging Turkey Initiative events
Historian Saul Friedlander, Inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in Historiography at the University of Oxford, May 2012
Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Media, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman Google, January 2013
Leading activists from pro-democracy movements in the Middle East, speaking at a Weidenfeld Debate, February 2012
Humanitas Visiting Professor in the History of Art, Philippe de Montebello, University of Cambridge, November 2012
Meeting of the Turkey Task Force, Istanbul, 13-14 April 2013
The Inaugural Hoffmann Lecture with Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, February 2013
Vanessa Redgrave, Humanitas Visiting Professor in Drama 2012, speaking at the University of Oxford, February 2012
Participants watch a presentation during ISD's second Social Media and Intolerance workshop, July 2012
Dr Suraya Dalil, Afghan Minister of Health, speaking at the Weidenfeld Debate, Oxford, May 2013
The 19th Plenary Meeting of the Club of Three, 17th and 18th of May, FCO Office, London
HE Karel Schwarzenberg, Czech Foreign Minister, addresses an invited audience at an ISD policy breakfast, October 2011
Humanitas Visiting Professor in Chamber Music 2012, Robert Levin, University of Cambridge, October 2012
Meeting of the Energy Expert Group to discuss energy issues of mutual concern to Turkey,USA and the EU
Imogen Cooper, pianist, Humanitas Visiting Professor of Classical Music and Music Education, 2012-2013
Members of the Phoenix Network at a meeting hosted by ISD with the Three Faiths Forum and the British Council, March 2012
Humanitas Visiting Professorship in the History of Ideas, Professor Lorraine Daston, January 2013
Dr Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defence College addressing the Counter-terrorism and Communities Workshop, September 2012
Journalists Edward Lucas, Deborah Rayner and Nabila Ramdani talking to ISD's Weidenfeld Scholars, June 2012
Gregory Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Humanitas Visiting Professor in Drama 2012-2013
European Leader Series, with Mikhail Kasyanov, former Prime Minister of Russia, February 2013, London
