The Strategic Weight of Turkey in Europe and Asia, in the Eyes of Fatih Tayfur

Fatih Tayfur, a lecturer at the Middle East Technical University (ÖDTU), analysed the endogenous and exogenous factors that mark the direction of Turkish foreign policy, in the Campana Hall of the CIDOB Foundation. This lecture, organised by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) emerging group for studies on Turkey, with the collaboration of the Mediterranean Programme of the CIDOB Foundation, is part of a series of debate workshops in which contemporary Turkey is analysed. Following Tayfur’s lecture, various scholars and analysts recognised the special importance of the political changes in Turkey for Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, in view of the strategic weight that the Ottoman country has gained over the last few years. In the debate, the issue of Cyprus, Turkey’s relations with Armenia, and the tension between promoting a model of moderate Islam or the secular nature of the Turkish state were also analysed. 

The debate workshop also featured the participation of Laura Feliu, a political scientist at the UAB; Isik Özel, a researcher at the IBEI (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals); Stelios Stavridis, an expert on international relations in the Mediterranean at Intercollege in Nicosia (Cyprus); Jordi Vaquer, Head of the Area of Asia and the Mediterranean in the Secretariat for International Relations of the Generalitat of Catalonia; and Francisco Veiga, a lecturer in history at the UAB.