Same Turkey, New U.S.-Turkey Policy?
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey remains mostly unchanged—cracking down on political opposition at home while seeking a bigger role on the world stage—yet its relationship with the United States might be shifting. On March 26, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Washington amid widespread Turkish protests after Turkey’s jailing of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, an Erdogan political opponent and 2028 presidential candidate. While Secretary Rubio expressed “concerns regarding recent arrests” to Fidan, he also “requested Turkey’s support” with a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, asked for Ankara’s help with cooling Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions, and encouraged “greater economic partnership” between the United States and Turkey, according to a U.S. readout.
This came shortly after U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff, in a March 21 interview with journalist Tucker Carlson, touted a “transformational” recent phone call between Presidents Trump and Erdogan. Both U.S. and Turkish officials have also told media outlets in recent days that Washington plans to lift restrictions on U.S.-Turkish defense trade, potentially including reversing Turkey’s previous removal from the U.S. military’s F-35 acquisition program.
To discuss the Trump administration’s approach towards Turkey and the current unrest inside Turkey’s borders, JINSA is hosting a webinar featuring leading experts, including JINSA Distinguished Scholar and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Amb. Eric Edelman, JINSA Scholar and Director of the Central-Asia Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Svante Cornell, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Member of JINSA’s Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project Alan Makovsky.
The discussion will be moderated by JINSA’s Vice President for Policy, Blaise Misztal.
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Tuesday, April 1 | 3:30PM ET |
This webinar is open exclusively to JINSA RSVPs must be received via the button Once your registration is confirmed, you will |
Svante E. Cornell Svante E. Cornell is a JINSA Scholar, the Director of the American Foreign Policy Council’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. His main areas of expertise are security issues, state-building, and transnational crime in Southwest and Central Asia, with a specific focus on the Caucasus and Turkey. He is the Editor of CACI’s Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst and Turkey Analyst, the Center’s electronic publications, and of its Silk Road Papers series of occasional papers. |
Amb. Eric Edelman Amb. Eric Edelman is a Distinguished Scholar at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy and the Co-Chair of its Iran Policy Project and Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project. Amb. Edelman served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House and served as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from August 2005 to January 2009. Amb. Edelman served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and Bush Administrations and was principal deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. |
Alan Makovsky Alan Makovsky is a senior fellow for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. From 2001 to 2013, he served as a senior professional staff member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and other related issues. |
Blaise Misztal Blaise Misztal is the Vice President for Policy at JINSA. His research interests include Iran and its nuclear program, U.S.-Turkey relations, countering extremism, and strategic competition. Misztal served as the Executive Director of the Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, a congressionally mandated project convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Program. He has testified before Congress and published widely—including op-eds in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, and Roll Call. |
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