Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, occupies a strategic location bridging West Asia and Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; and the Aegean Sea, Greece, and Bulgaria to the west. Turkey is home to over 85 million people; most are ethnic Turks, while ethnic Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Almost 2 million Syrian refugees reside in Turkey. Officially a secular state, Turkey has a Muslim-majority population. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city, while Istanbul is its largest city and economic and financial center.
Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. One-party rule ended in 1950, and periods of instability and military coups have rocked the multiparty democracy through the years. President Erdogan has been in power for more than 20 years. He first served as Prime Minister and then President after a referendum in 2017 in which voters approved constitutional amendments changing Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system.
Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and while long supportive has resisted plans for NATO expansion. In 1963, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community; it began accession talks with the EU in 2005. In recent years, Turkey has pursued an independent foreign policy. In that regard, Turkey maintains ties with Russia and has applied for BRICS membership.
Our well-qualified speaker, Kemal Kirişci, is a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, with an expertise in Turkish foreign policy and migration studies. From 2013 until 2020, he was TUSAID senior fellow at Brookings and director of the Turkey Project.
Before joining Brookings, Kirişci was a professor of international relations and held the Jean Monnet chair in European integration in the department of political science and international relations at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. His areas of research interest include EU-Turkish relations, U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish foreign and trade policies, European integration, immigration issues, ethnic conflicts, and refugee movements.
Kemal Kirişci is the author of several books on Turkey, the Kurds, and Syrian refugees. Kirişci has also extensively published articles on Turkish foreign policy, EU-Turkish relations and immigration in academic journals and numerous op-eds on current affairs in Turkey since joining Brookings.
Kirişci earned a PhD in international relations at the City University, London, a master’s in international relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, and a bachelor’s in finance and management from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul.
6:00 Cocktails 6:45 Dinner 7:45 Address and Discussion
Save the Date - January 9, 2025
Ambassador David Satterfield
"Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Policy in the New Administration: The Middle East and Beyond."