Suat Kiniklioglu was appointed executive director of the German
Marshall Fund’s new office in Ankara, Turkey, in 2005. He has a weekly column
in the English daily Today's Zaman and is editor of Insight Turkey, a quarterly
publication on Turkish foreign policy issues. He previously worked on Black Sea security
and strategic issues as a Transatlantic Fellow with the GMF in Washington,
D.C. Mr. Kiniklioglu comes to GMF from the Ankara Center for Turkish Policy
(ANKAM), where he served as the center’s founding director. Before
his recent tenure at ANKAM, Mr. Kiniklioglu worked as a development officer
responsible for Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan at the Canadian International
Development Agency, based in Ankara. Prior to that, he was a senior political
and economic research officer at the Australian Embassy in Turkey. He has
also worked as a foreign policy correspondent for the Turkish newspaper
Yeni Yuzyil. Mr. Kiniklioglu holds the rank of division/liaison squadron
commander in the Turkish Air Force, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate
in political science at Bilkent University. He received a Master of International
Relations from Bilkent University and a B.A. in political science from
Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He also holds a bachelor’s
degree in electronics from the Turkish Air Force Academy in Istanbul. He
is fluent in Turkish, English, German, and Azerbaijani, and is proficient
in Russian.
Ian Lesser is
a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United
States. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, the London School
of Economics, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and received his
D.Phil from Oxford University. He came to the German Marshall Fund in November
2006 from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington,
D.C., where he leads a major project on the future of US-Turkish relations.
He is also President of Mediterranean Advisors, LLC, and senior advisor
to the Luso-American Foundation in Lisbon. Prior to establishing Mediterranean
Advisors, Dr. Lesser was Vice President and Director of Studies at the
Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, and spent over
a decade at RAND as a senior analyst and research manager specializing
in strategic studies and Mediterranean security. From 1994-1995, he was
a member of the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department
of State, where his portfolio included southern Europe, Turkey, and the
multilateral track of the Middle East peace process. He is a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the U.S., the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, the advisory boards of Turkish
Policy Quarterly and the International Spectator, and is a former senior
fellow of the Onassis foundation. At GMF, Dr. Lesser focuses on Turkey,
the US-Turkey-EU triangle, strategies toward North Africa and the Mediterranean,
and transatlantic cooperation on new security and public policy challenges.
Pinar Bilgin is a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars. She is currently working on a project entitled "Globalization
and Security in the Developing World: The Case of Turkey." She received
a B.Sc. in International Relations at the Middle East Technical University
in Ankara, an M.A. in International Relations at Bilkent University in
Ankara, an M.Sc. in Strategic Studies and a Ph.D. in International Politics
at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. She is currently an Assistant
Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University and was until
recently also an Assistant Dean there. She previously served as a researcher
at the General Secretariat of the Turkish National Security Council. Her
publications include the book Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical
Perspective; "Turkey's Changing Security Discourses: The Challenge
of Globalisation," in European Journal of Political Research; and "From
'Rogue' to 'Failed' States? The Fallacy of Short-termism," in Politics,
which was awarded UK Political Studies Association's annual prize for the
best article published in Politics in 2004. Her areas of expertise include
critical approaches to security, globalization and security in the developing
world, Turkey's foreign and security policies, and regional security in
the Middle East.
Charles A. Kupchan is Professor of International Affairs in the School
of Foreign Service and Government Department, Georgetown University,
and Senior Fellow and Director of European Studies at the Council
on Foreign Relations. During 2006-2007, he is also a fellow at
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and holds
the Henry A. Kissinger chair at the Library of Congress. Dr. Kupchan
was Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council
during the first Clinton administration, and has also worked at
the U.S. Department of State on the Policy Planning Staff. He received
a B.A. from Harvard University and M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees
from Oxford University. He is the author of The End of the
American Era (2002), Power in Transition: The Peaceful
Change of International Order (2001), Civic Engagement
in the Atlantic Community (1999),
and numerous articles on international and strategic affairs.
In recent years, new dynamics have dominated Turkey's foreign policy outlook,
particularly toward its immediate neighborhood but also beyond
it. This is due to a new approach by the Justice and Development
Party (AKP) that took office in November 2002. Turkey's new
foreign policy outlook toward the East has been conditioned
by a distinct desire to play a more central role in that part
of the world, but is also perceived as redressing a situation
that was abnormal. Turkey's new foreign policy elite has been
in search of a more meaningful role in the Middle East and
the East in general and is attempting to carve out a new role
in these regions. The domestic dynamics of this policy are
by and large the product of Turkey's ongoing search for an
internal consensus on Turkish identity. Here, the question
of Ottoman heritage and what that means in terms of Turkey's
policies in the East becomes a central question in Turkey's
perennial search for a place in the world.
This event is supported in part by a grant from The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan.
