Turkish Studies (GLORIA/Frank Cass) is
calling for papers for a themed issue on Turkish culture. Articles should be up
to 7,500 words. As in all other TS issues, articles will be subject to review
process. 4-5 articles
will be accepted. Deadline: 1 January, 2004. Please feel free to forward this
call to anyone in the field you think might be interested in this topic. For
further information, please contact me at the above email or visit our site:
http://www.frankcass.com/jnls;
http://tsi.idc.ac.il/ts/ts.html.
New Europe or Old? By Michelle Ciarrocca
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hit a nerve last month when he dismissed
French and German opposition to the U.S. rushing to war in Iraq, saying bluntly
to reporters, "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't." He
added: "I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today,
the center of gravity is shifting to the east." For Turkey, an old member of
NATO and a key ally in the first Gulf War, the U.S. is offering to help Turkey
become part of the "New Europe" in return for its cooperation if U.S. forces
invade Iraq.
But the combination of popular opposition to the war, economic uncertainty, and
the long-standing desire to suppress demands for Kurdish self-determination
(which a post-war Iraq would almost certainly accelerate), are mixed with
political divisions between the ruling Justice and Development Party (an
Islamist party) and the secular-dominated military. All of these factors have
led the ruling party to delay the vote on the deployment of U.S. troops on its
soil. Despite Rumsfeld's endorsement, the Turkish face of "New Europe" faces
some old challenges.
Michelle Ciarrocca <CiarrM01@newschool.edu>
is a research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the
World Policy Institute. She writes regularly for Foreign Policy In Focus (online
at www.fpif.org).
See complete new FPIF commentary online at:
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0302turkey.html
With printer-friendly PDF version at:
http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0302turkey.pdf
