Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu quoted in HuffPost

In a November 12, 2019 article for HuffPost by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Erdogan Will Have Fewer Friends Than Ever When He Visits The U.S. This Week,” Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu comments on Trump’s problematic relationship with Erdoğan.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Erdogan and his inner circle became convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was close to Gülen and shared what they believed to be the Obama administration’s tacit support for a failed coup attempt that year that they blame on the cleric, according to Merve Tahiroglu of the Washington-based Project on Democracy.

So they focused on her rival, Trump, hiring Flynn and exploring how to exploit his clear tendency to fall for strongmen.

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Trump, during the course of his presidency, has consistently batted away critiques of Erdogan’s heavy-handedness and made decisions like his move to pull out U.S. troops in Syria based directly on interactions with his Turkish counterpart.

“Trump himself is doing Erdogan’s bidding when it comes to transmitting Ankara’s propaganda to the American public,” Tahiroglu said. “He does it better than Erdogan can in .”

Read the full article here.

Photo: Official Turkish Press Office Deputy Director for Policy Andrew Miller featured on CNN

In a November 11, 2019 segment for CNN, “Rudy Giuliani’s globetrotting complicates US foreign policy,” Deputy Director for Policy Andrew Miller tells Drew Griffin how Rudy Giuliani’s unofficial meetings with various officials and world leaders are compromising the ability of the US State Department and other government agencies to carry out their roles.

Andrew Miller, a former official who worked in the State Department during the Bush and Obama administrations and served on the National Security Council during the Obama era said, “There are those in the State Department and the professional U.S. national security apparatus who view Giuliani as a shadow secretary of state.”

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“Unfortunately it appears that foreign governments are putting more stock in what Rudy Giuliani—a private citizen—is saying, than what the duly appointed and confirmed ambassador of the United States to these countries or to official U.S. government officials who have also been vetted by Congress.”

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Giuliani’s interactions with world leaders — like his visit to Uruguay last November — can be challenging for the State Department, because he does not work for the US government and does not have an obligation to report the contents of his conversations through official channels, according to Miller. “It is dangerous because it creates the possibility that foreign countries can play various actors within the US off against each other,” he said.

“When you have someone whose interests are not aligned with the US government who is prioritizing his private financial interests, that… makes it a possibility that there’s going to be some compromising of US national security,” Miller added.

Watch the segment and read the article here.

Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu’s Helsinki Commission Testimony featured in Ahval

A November 1, 2019 article for Ahval, “Democratic lawmakers says voted for Armenian Genocide because Turkey Does not respect US,” features quotes from Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroglu’s testimony given at a recent US Helsinki Commission hearing “At What Cost? The Human Toll of Turkey’s Policy at Home and Abroad,” where she spoke on the decline of the rule of law in Turkey and on Erdoğan’s repression of journalists and other civil society voices.

Henri Barkey, a professor from Lehigh University who left Turkey following the July 2016 coup attempt since he was accused of being a coup plotter, Talip Küçükcan, a former politician from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Eric Schwartz, the chairman of Refugees International, Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey Program Coordinator of Project on Middle East Democracy and Gönül Tol, Director of Center for Turkish Studies at Middle East Institute, participated in the hearing as witnesses.

Tahiroğlu said Erdoğan has severely eroded judicial independence and the rule of law in Turkey and the worsening conditions in the country should matter to the United States, reminding the imprisonment of Evangelical pastor .

“Courts in Turkey were never fully independent. But Erdoğan’s subjugation of the judiciary is unmatched in recent history. During his 18 years in power, Erdoğan has hollowed out Turkey’s judiciary, packing key judicial positions,” Tahiroglu said.

“Today, Turkey’s highly politicized judiciary functions as one of the primary facilitators of Erdoğan’s assaults on Turkish democracy… Journalists have been among the courts’ top targets. With more than 120 journalists in prison accused of bogus terrorism or propaganda charges. Their arrests have come as Erdoğan has used state of emergency decrees to shut down more than 45 newspapers, 16 television channels, and 29 publishing houses,” she said.

Read the full article here.

Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroglu quoted in Ahval

In a November 1, 2019 article by David Lepeska for Ahval, “Turkey’s Syria Offensive is a nationalist political campaign,” Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroglu helps explain the motives behind Turkey’s Syria incursion.

Turkish officials have laid out two main objectives for the incursion, clearing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its affiliate the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from its border and resettling up to two million refugees in a planned safe zone.

Merve Tahiroğlu, Turkey programme coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, views both of these objectives as politically driven.

“This military incursion accomplished major political motivations in Turkey,” she told Ahval in a podcast. “Domestic politics are really driving it.”

Most observers agree that growing frustration with the presence of Syrian refugees and the economic strains they have put on Turkey played a key role in local election losses that Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered in Istanbul and other major cities this year.

This could explain Ankara’s plan to resettle most of the refugees in Syria, according to Tahiroğlu. She sees returning millions of refugees to Syria as unlikely, mainly because Turkey has only gained control of a small strip of land in northeast Syria, and believes Erdoğan will suffer politically as a result.

Secondly, key to Ekrem Imamoğlu’s victory in the Istanbul mayoral election earlier this year, said Tahiroğlu, was the support of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which decided not to run a candidate in Istanbul and other cities in order to improve the chances of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

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Turkey’s ongoing offensive in northeast Syria has effectively ended the emerging partnership between the CHP and the HDP, which, if solidified, could have posed a real threat to the AKP, according to Tahiroğlu.

Turkey, which sees the YPG as an extension of the PKK, has been presenting its Syria operation as a counter-terrorism offensive – a description Tahiroğlu questions. “Turkey saw the SDF statelet as a strategic threat, but it’s hard to say a military threat ever existed,” she said. “The YPG never attacked Turkey.”

She said Turkey’s real concern had been that U.S. support for the YPG in its fight against Islamic State (ISIS) was strengthening the group and boosting its international reputation.

“The more the YPG in Syria grew popular on the international stage because of its fight against ISIS, the more negatively that affected Turkey’s peace process with the PKK,” said Tahiroğlu.

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Tahiroğlu extended the absence of goodwill to Turkey’s Kurdish citizens, who represent about 18 percent of the population.

“Even if the PKK in the short to medium-term makes a strategic calculation to relaunch talks, Turkey’s Syria policy will continue to impact its broader reconciliation with its Kurdish population,” she said. This is in part because Turkish officials and pro-government media have been fanning the flames of nationalism. Despite the absence of any apparent national security threat, Erdoğan said in a video message marking Turkey’s Republic Day on Tuesday that his country was waging a war similar to its War of Independence.

“He also said this is the second War of Independence after the failed coup attempt in July 2016 when he was pushing through massive purges under a state of emergency,” said Tahiroğlu. “We have a heightened militarism inside Turkey. Ultra-nationalist feelings are boosted, there are all sorts of militant spectacles, and this helps crystallise anti-Kurdish sentiment.”

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This tough talk, combined with the offensive, may be boosting Erdoğan’s political support. Within Turkey, a recent poll put public approval for the Syria operation at nearly 80 percent.

But Tahiroğlu doubts the accuracy of that number, pointing out that nearly 200 people have been detained for social media posts criticising the war.

“I would wager that there are enough in-built organic forces that could critique this incursion, but they are currently being silenced,” she said, mentioning the many academics who have been detained for denouncing Turkish military aggressions against Kurds.

“The HDP is very critical of the Syria operation, but they’re not allowed to speak,” said Tahiroğlu. “The current co-chairs are indicted, the previous co-chairs are in jail, multiple members have been in jail under dubious terrorism links.”

Read full article here. Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroglu featured on Ahval Podcast

In an October 31, 2019 podcast for Ahval, “Turkey’s Syria offensive is about domestic politics,” Turkey Program Coordinator Merve Tahiroğlu discusses the Armenian Genocide bill, Syrian refugees, the Kurdish issue, Erdoğan’s militant rhetoric, and other topics with host David Lepeska.

Referring to the Armenian Genocide bill: “the fact that the House overwhelming voted on this is actually pretty historic. And the fact that it’s coming at a time when there is growing frustration in Congress for all sorts of reasons related to Turkey shows how politicized this really is.”

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“President Trump seems to have a close personal relationship with President Erdoğan, they have a very good rapport, they have certain ideological convictions that they share, they also have a conspiratorial worldview that they share, and so they get along. Trump has multiple times acted almost as an intermediary between the Erdoğan government and Congress and other parts of the US bureaucracy to kind of mediate between them, and to contain various frustrations in Washington with Erdoğan so as to not impose sanctions.”

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“Now, when the government is going after almost 200 people detaining them for their social media posts criticizing the war, then that’s going to make it all the more unlikely for any critical voices to be able to come out and speak out against this.”

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“I think it’s really important to contextualize Turkey’s foreign policy with the growing domestic repression and increasingly what we’re calling a one-man regime.”

Listen to “Turkey’s Syria offensive is about domestic politics – Merve Tahiroğlu” on Spreaker.

Listen to the full podcast here. Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat quoted in Ahval

In an October 30, 2019 article by Ian J. Lynch for Ahval, “Deferred for decades, U.S. Congress formally denounces the Armenian Genocide,” Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat comments on the recent House Armenian Genocide resolution and why Turkey continues to deny the genocide happened.

“The dates listed in the resolution, of 1915-1923 strike me as maximalist and elide the actual genocide with later warfare, in which ethnic cleansing was also sometimes a component,” Howard Eissenstat, associate professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University and a nonresident fellow at POMED, told Ahval. He added that conservative estimates place the death toll between 800,000 and one million.

“On the more central issue of whether the Ottomans perpetrated a genocide against Armenians and other eastern Christian populations during World War I, historians fundamentally agree,” Eissenstat continued. “They did.”

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Although Turkey continues to spend exorbitantly on lobbying the U.S. government, forking out $6.59 million in 2018, Eissenstat does not think that is the key reason it has taken so long for the U.S. Congress to formally recognize the genocide.

“I think the core issue is that successive administrations have believed the diplomatic costs of such a resolution were simply too high,” he said.

The reasons explaining why Turkey has so stridently denied that the Armenian genocide took place are complicated. For Eissenstat, two stand out. “Turkey has long feared that recognition of the genocide might result in either territorial claims or demands for restitution,” he said. “It is fair to remember how much of the early Republic’s wealth was expropriated from dead or displaced non-Muslims.”

“The second, and more important reason,” according to Eissenstat, “is that these crimes are wrapped up in the history of Turkey’s own national birth. Many heroes of the early Republic were directly or indirectly involved; this makes recognition of the genocide particularly irksome for Turkey because it suggests that the republic itself was in some sense corrupt at its outset.”

Read the full article here.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons

Deputy Director for Research Amy Hawthorne quoted in Al-Monitor

In an October 23, 2019 article by Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor, “’s ‘poker face’ president sworn in,” Deputy Director for Research Amy Hawthorne comments on public sentiment regarding newly elected Tunisian President Kais Saied and his role in the future of the country.

Saied signaled that he will remain fiercely independent. Amy Hawthorne, deputy director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington-based think tank, told Al- Monitor, “Voter mobilization for Kais Saied was strong — through many networks — and Tunisians presumably see him as a leader who can influence a wide range of issues in the country.” Hawthorne continued, “In this regard, it will be fascinating to watch how Saied translates his decisive mandate into tangible change for Tunisians. Tunisia is entering a new political phase whose contours and tenor is not yet clear.”

Read the full article here. Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat quoted in the New York Times

In an October 22, 2019 article by Anton Troianovski and Patrick Kinglsey, “Putin and Erdogan Announce Plan for Northeast Syria, Bolstering Russian Influence,” Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat comments on the shifting roles of the United States and Russia in the region.

“The U.S. is still the 500-pound gorilla,” said Howard Eissenstat, a professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. “If the U.S. decided that ‘issue X’ was a primary concern to its national security, there would be very little that anybody in the region could do about it.”

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Russia “doesn’t have the economic or military capabilities the U.S. has,” Mr. Eissenstat said, “but it has been very savvy about using its power in limited and effective means.”

Read the full article here.

Photo: Mustafa Kamaci/Turkish Presidential Press Office Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat quoted in the Washington Post

In an October 16, 2019 article by Siobhan O’Grady for the Washington Post, “Trump’s Syria pullout leaves U.S. with few options – and very little leverage,” Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat comments on the implications of President Trump’s pulling of American troops from northeastern Syria, and how the move has affected the administration’s ability to respond to Turkey’s Syria incursion.

“We are used to thinking about the U.S. as a superpower that’s able to step into problems and leverage responses favorable to its interests and its ideals pretty handily,” said Howard Eissenstat, a professor at St. Lawrence University and senior fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy.

But in this case, he said, “we’ve so sabotaged ourselves that we’re not able to do it.”

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But Eissenstat said it’s very unlikely that the United States would try to use Gulen as any kind of bartering chip with Turkey to resolve the standoff over Syria.

“It was clearly in our interest to extradite Gulen for years and had there been a convenient legal way to do so, the U.S. would have done so, but it’s got to get through the Justice Department and it’s got to get through the courts,” Eissenstat said.

Read the full article here.

Photo: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Arjenis Nunez/Released

Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat quoted in Al-Monitor

In an October 16, 2019 article by Bryant Harris for Al-Monitor, “Congress noncommittal on Turkey sanctions,” Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat comments on President Trump’s underwhelming sanctions on Turkey.

Howard Eissenstat, a senior fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy, called Trump’s Turkey sanctions “really small potatoes.”

“The steel tariff is laughable,” said Eissenstat. “Turkey doesn’t sell very much steel to us at all. The penalties on the ministries of defense, interior and energy don’t preclude any intergovernmental relations and, in any case, wouldn’t be activated for 30 days.”

Furthermore, Trump has refused to implement legally mandated sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of the S-400 Russian missile defense system. All three sanctions bills clarify that the Trump administration must implement the sanctions for the purchase.

The McCaul bill also calls for the Trump administration to sanction Turkey’s state-run Halkbank for an Iran sanctions evasion scheme dating back to the Obama administration.

But Congress may not even have to act on the Halkbank sanctions. The Justice Department indicted Halkbank for allegedly laundering money to Iran on Tuesday despite Ankara’s multiyear lobbying effort to avoid the indictment and sanctions. Eissenstat estimates that the Halkbank sanctions could exceed $2 billion but argued that “there’s something political about the decision to begin prosecution now.”

Read the full article here.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons