Turkey

Though battered economically, socially and politically for decades, the city and province of Diyarbakır could offer hope for Turks and Kurds who want to live together, if Ankara can refocus its policies on creating a more equal, democratic Turkey.

Turkey needs to recover the initiative after the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) insurgency’s aggressive escalation of violence and implement a long-term conflict resolution strategy that addresses Kurdish grievances.

To head off a serious escalation of the armed conflict, Turkey and the Turkish Kurd nationalist movement must immediately step back from the trap of a new cycle of tit-for-tat military and terrorist attacks that have killed 110 people since June.

To capitalise on twelve years of normalisation, and at a time when both could benefit from a foreign policy success, Greece and Turkey should settle their expensive, outdated and stressful stand-off over Aegean Sea maritime zones and related issues.

While suspicions in Western capitals about its relationship with Iran and tensions with Israel have dealt setbacks to its “zero-problem” foreign policy, Turkey shares many of the goals of its Western partners and should continue to play an important role in resolving Middle Eastern and other conflicts.

Turkey ’s sometimes controversial new Middle East activism is an asset to the EU and U.S., and attractive in the region, but only if Ankara pursues its long-standing integration with the West.

Turkey and Armenia are close to settling a dispute that has long roiled Caucasus politics, isolated Armenia and cast a shadow over Turkey’s European Union (EU) ambition.

Turkey is entering a critical year, in which its prospects for European Union (EU) membership are at make or break stage.

The pro-reform AK Party’s resounding victory in the July 2007 parliamentary elections gives both it and the European Union (EU) a chance to relaunch Turkey’s accession process, which has floundered since 2005 due to Europe’s enlargement fatigue and a neo-nationalist backlash in the country.