After the Failed Coup: Prospects for Turkish Stability and the U.S.-Turkey Alliance

In light of this weekend’s failed coup attempt and the ongoing instability in Turkey, FDD hosted a timely lunch conversation on Thursday, July 21 at 12:00pm with director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program Henri Barkey; former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman; former Turkish MP Aykan Erdemir;  and founding director of The Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies Gönül Tol. The conversation was moderated by John Hannah.

After the Failed Coup: Prospects for Turkish Stability and the U.S.-Turkey Alliance

A Conversation with Eric Edelman, Aykan Erdemir, Henri Barkey,
Gönül Tol, and John Hannah

Thursday, July 21, 2016

 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Lunch and registration will begin at 11:45 am

The failed coup attempt in Turkey represents the latest example of the growing political instability under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose multi-year campaign to consolidate dictatorial powers and destroy opposition have left Turkey dangerously polarized. What lies ahead for Turkey and how will Erdoğan react in the coming days, weeks, and months? What are the security concerns for Turkey and the United States given the latest events, and how will the failed coup affect the coalition fighting the Islamic State? How might Washington respond, and what will Erdoğan’s latest call for extradition of Fethullah Gülen and a Turkish Minister’s statement that the United States is behind the failed coup mean for U.S.-Turkish relations?

Dr. Henri Barkey is the Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the former Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Professor at Lehigh University. Barkey is also a former public policy scholar at the Wilson Center. His most recent works include Turkey’s Syria Predicament (Survival, 2014) and Iraq, Its Neighbors and the United States, co-edited with Phebe Marr and Scott Lasensky (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2011). He served as a member of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff working primarily on issues related to the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, and intelligence from 1998 to 2000.

Ambassador Eric Edelman serves as a senior advisor to FDD’s Turkey Program and is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  He retired as a Career Minister from the U.S. Foreign Service on May 1, 2009. He served as U.S. ambassador to Finland in the Clinton administration and to Turkey in the Bush administration and was Vice President Cheney’s principal deputy assistant for national security affairs. He has served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House where he led organizations providing analysis, strategy, policy development, security services, trade advocacy, public outreach, citizen services, and congressional relations. Amb. Edelman has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and several Department of State Superior Honor Awards.

Dr. Aykan Erdemir is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011-2015). He served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet. As an outspoken defender of pluralism, minority rights, and religious freedoms in the Middle East, Dr. Erdemir is a recipient of the 2016 Stefanus Prize for Religious Freedom, and founding member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief. Dr. Erdemir received his PhD in anthropology and Middle East studies from Harvard University, and worked as a faculty member at Bilkent University and Middle East Technical University, Ankara. He is co-author of the 2016 book Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces (Routledge).

Dr. Gönül Tol is the founding director of The Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies. She is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies and writes a weekly column for the liberal Turkish daily Radikal. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Florida International University, where she was a graduate fellow at the Middle East Studies Center.  After three years of field research in Germany and the Netherlands, she wrote her dissertation on the radicalization of the Turkish Islamist movement Milli Gorus in Western Europe. She was also an adjunct professor at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University. She has taught courses on Islamist movements in Western Europe, Turkey, world politics, and the Middle East.

John Hannah is a senior counselor at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Prior to joining FDD, he served for eight years, during the George W. Bush administration, on the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, including as the vice president’s national security advisor. He was intimately involved in U.S. policy toward Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and on a range of international issues from the Middle East to North Korea to Russia. Previously, Mr. Hannah also worked as a senior advisor on the staff of Secretary of State Warren Christopher and as a senior member of Secretary of State James A. Baker’s Policy Planning Staff. He has also practiced law, specializing in international dispute resolution.