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,” Turkey 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 Middle East Democracy. So they focused on her rival, Trump, hiring Flynn and exploring how to exploit his clear tendency to fall for strongmen. ….. 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 The Washington Post.” 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.” ….. “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.” ….. 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 Andrew Brunson. “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). …. 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. …. 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.” …. 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.