On Monday, November 24 TUSIAD-US hosted an event featuring Gul Inanc entitled “Dilemmas of AKP’s Foreign Policy Activism”.  Suhnaz Yilmaz, who was one of the speakers, was not able to travel because of a health issue but her part of the speech that focused on AKP’s foreign policy activism was presented by Dr. Inanc. Mrs. Inanc, who is a professor at Eastern Mediterranean University in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, spoke about the research she is conducting with Suhnaz Yilmaz on the role of the Turkish government, and the diplomatic corps in particular, in their efforts to address regional policy.  TUSIAD-US Program Manager, Gonul Tol, moderated the event.

In their research, Mrs. Inanc and Mrs. Yilmaz conducted a series of interviews with retired Turkish ambassadors and read many of their papers and memoirs in order to evaluate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an international framework, with their two largest case studies being those issues related to Cyprus and Northern Iraq.  They came across two main themes: that diplomacy is the product of an ever-changing domestic and international environment and that the practice and implementation of foreign policy is carried out by a diverse range of bureaucratic approaches.

Mrs. Inanc concluded in her presentation that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although not intended as a domestic institution, could play a more influential role in domestic policy in cases where international and internal affairs overlap, such as regarding Iraq and the Kurdish issue, if it had more visibility to the public.

Please click here to read an article co-authored by Suhnaz Yilmaz about her research.

Please click here to read an abstract of Gul Inanc's speech.