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• cnnturk'un sorulariyla ankara'ya gelen yabanci diplomatlara soguk terler dokturten , ongoruleri kuvvetli diplomasi muhabiri. ayrica iyi yemek pisirdigi soylenir. annesi de cok guzel sarma yaparmis
• dışişleri bakanlığından haber patlatabilen nadir diplomasi muhabirlerindendir.
• 17 aralik zirvesini neredeyse iceriden takibetmis anlatmis cnnturk editoru..
  gece gorusu'ne transfer oldu bu ara..
  artik istanbul'da yasiyor..
  yemegini bilmem ama partileri meshurmus
• türk dış politikasıyla ilgili son derece ilginç bir yazı.
  
  the baltics rely on turkish women for air security
  
  this is the type of headline i’d like to see when we talk about turkey’s international activism and actually the above headline is not fiction. it is real. let me explain.
  
  the baltic states do not have their own fighter jets to protect their national airspace. when the three former soviet states joined nato, member countries started to deploy their aircraft to conduct the baltic air policing mission to fill in the baltic states’ shortage of relevant aircraft.
  
  since 2004, when the baltic mission was first launched, a dozen member countries including turkey have been rotating the mission. in other words, turkish fighter jets have been assigned to do air patrolling in baltic airspace, and the crew includes female pilots too.
  
  this was mentioned by one of the leaders of the baltic states, who told the visiting nato secretary-general how baltic air security was in “the hands of turkish women.”
  
  that’s the type of news i’d like to read about turkey’s foreign policy.
  
  i don’t want to read news stories about the discovery of smuggled weapons in a turkish ship bound for yemen, a few days after turkey forced a russian plane to land on suspicion of carrying military materiel to syria.
  
  i want to read about the turkish army being almost the only foreign troops in afghanistan to have a billboard with a national flag announcing its radio station, which will broadcast in english and pashtun.
  
  i don’t want to read stories that say members of turkish al-qaeda were found dead in syria while fighting alongside the syrian opposition.
  
  i want to read news stories that talk about how turkey, which set up tents in kosovo during ramadan so fasting kosovars could break their fast, also organized a jazz festival that became a huge success, proving that turkey’s activities in kosovo are not limited to religious undertakings.
  
  i don’t want to read stories about kidnapped turkish businessmen or journalists, a tool that rogue states or nonstate actors often use against a country they believe to have imperial designs.
  
  i want to read stories that say, while english and german still remain popular, there is a serious rise in the number of serbs who want to learn turkish, because of the popularity of turkish soap operas, the very ones that the turkish prime minister has been critical about.
  
  i don’t want to read stories about how turkey has become a back base for syrian opposition forces and concerns about weapons going through the turkish borders ending up in the hands of radical islamists.
  
  turkey’s strength as a major regional player and a midsize global actor comes from a finely tuned mix of soft and hard power; the latter being used only for defensive purposes and as a projection of soft power in places like afghanistan. getting into dirty politics, becoming a “little america,” to use the jargon of the ruling party’s constituency, won’t make turkey a major player.
  
  finally i don’t want to see the turkish foreign minister crying. it is not tears that will help the palestinians, but sober thinking just as we have seen in egypt’s mediation to end the latest conflict between israel and hamas.
  november/27/2012
  
  kaynak: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/…stvniao-a.twitter
• prof. dr. refet yinanç'ın kerimesidir.
• ıstanbul can win olympic bid thanks to gezi park protests
  
  ın less than a month we will know whether ıstanbul will host the 2020 olympic games.
  
  some turkish officials, including ıstanbul mayor kadir topbaş and youth and sports minister suat kılıç have warned about what they see as the negative effect of the mass protests that took place last month in ıstanbul on the city’s olympic bid.
  
  this is another piece of proof that turkish officials understand neither the spirit of “gezi” nor the spirit of the olympics. they are actually the same thing.
  
  mass demonstrations that have spilled over into turkey were initially sparked by a group of environmentalists who objected to the demolition of gezi park, in the framework of plans to redesign ıstanbul’s iconic taksim square. the handful of activists had chosen to “occupy” gezi park because the government did not permit them any other means. previous attempts, which also included legal processes to stop such projects, have all failed. look at the sulukule neighborhood, where roma people used to live, the tarlabaşı neighborhood near taksim, the historical emek theater, haydarpaşa train station, galataport, the new bridge over the golden horn; the list can go on and on.
  
  ıt is ironic that while prime minister recep tayyip erdoğan insists on constructing a replica of ottoman artillery barracks in gezi park and thereby tries to show his loyalty to turkey’s ottoman past, the biggest betrayal to the ottoman legacy came during his governance. ıstanbul’s classical silhouette made up of minarets (which is supposedly sacred for erdoğan’s pious constituency) has been tarnished by the construction of the new bridge (whose architect is ıstanbul mayor topbaş) as well as the construction of skyscrapers that now make their appearance between the minarets.
  
  no one is against development and restoration. but what the government understands by renovation and restoration is to demolish the old and construct something brand new. prime minister recep tayyip erdoğan’s dream is not to make ıstanbul like paris, london or rome but to make it look like new york or shanghai.
  
  the analogy between the gezi park protests and the olympic games lies in the government’s lust to make ıstanbul a construction site to keep the economy running as well as to satisfy the appetite of its supporters from the business world.
  
  but the olympic games are not about constructing sports facilities; as far as the city is concerned it is to transform it into a sport-friendly city. that does not mean constructing a facility that will remain idle after the olympic games, but to have bicycle lanes along the streets, for instance.
  
  while the support for ıstanbul’s bid among locals is more than 80 percent, according to the ınternational olympic committee (which is basing this number on polls that were done prior to the gezi protests), it is certain that ıstanbul’s locals (at least 50 percent of them) will scrutinize much more the projects that will be undertaken to prepare the city for the games. that certainly is not going to please the government. but it is a great irony that actually what erdoğan has called çapulcu (marauders) are of a generation of his own making.
  
  this is a generation that has grown up in a freer environment, without the paranoia that kurds will disintegrate turkey, that ıslamists and headscarf-wearing women will bring shariah law and that non-muslim minorities are the fifth arm of some countries. they were raised hearing eu reforms, democratic opening, alevi opening, kurdish opening. myths about the turkish army as the savior of the country, or about official turkish history, were deconstructed while they were growing up. the prime minister gave them an extra-large jacket, and now he wants to take it back and give an extra-small jacket instead. ıt is too late; the genie is out of the bottle.
  ıstanbul can win the bid precisely because it has people who are very conscientious about everything surrounding them, whose common ideology is fundamental freedoms, which is in conformity with the olympic spirit.
  july/02/2013
  
  kaynak: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/…823&newscatid=412
• putin returns criticism to turkish pm on foreign forces in syria
  
  turkish prime minister recep tayyip erdoğan said during his may visit to washington that he would be going to russia to talk about syria.
  
  we are in mid-july and a visit to moscow does not loom in erdoğan’s agenda. this might be because, after speaking on the phone to russian president vladimir putin, he might have concluded that they are not on the same page and that the visit could turn to a cold shower.
  
  according to diplomatic sources, putin was very unyielding when erdoğan complained about the intervention of “foreign forces,” criticizing the fact that hezbollah is fighting next to bashar al-assad’s forces. ıt seems that putin was not shy on giving the message that while turkey is complaining about “intervention from outside,” it is also seen as a country that is turning a blind eye to foreign fighters and arms passing through its border to reach the opposition forces.
  
  ınconsistency is not a must in the world’s real politic, but it is a luxury usually enjoyed by the big powers. when it comes to the inconsistencies of small and medium-sized powers; they can sometimes sell it, sometimes not. this time, it seems putin did not buy it.
  
  turkish foreign minister ahmet davutoğlu has renewed his call to hezbollah to leave syria, after having met his ıranian counterpart last friday. apparently, turkey has been voicing hezbollah’s withdrawal from syria as a precondition for the opposition groups’ attendance to geneva 2, the international conference that russia and the united states are trying to convene. while ankara is prone to talking about policies based on principle, someone needs to tell the government that diplomacy is not the art of “be realistic and ask for the impossible,” but rather “be realistic and ask for the attainable.”
  
  unfortunately, soon we might end up relying on guys like putin to provide a reality check to foreign policy, because we might soon run out of career diplomats with the guts to warn the government about the possible consequences of specific foreign policy moves.
  
  the bill that will enable non–diplomats to become top level foreign ministry officials was recently passed by parliament. ıf it is signed by the president, those who are not career diplomats but rather appointed to a foreign capital as an ambassador will be able to return and assume a high level position in the foreign ministry.
  
  the former head of the higher education board (yök), yusuf ziya özcan, who has been appointed as ambassador to poland, for instance, could become the head of the department that deals with european countries or arab countries.
  
  “ı looked at the ınternet. ıt is the country of chopin. a country rich with cultural life, literature and music,” was özcan’s first statement when he learned about his appointment to warsaw. he will have to spent a lot of time on google if he is assigned to a position in the ministry when he comes back.
  
  davutoğlu defended the bill by saying that not everyone who falls into the category will be given positions in the ministry on their return. but this is no consolation. why would anyone feel encouraged to enter the foreign ministry and work hard if s/he knew that one day someone from outside would become his/her superior without having endured all the hardships of the profession?
  
  last week, davutoğlu held a long meeting with turkey’s envoys over egypt. each ambassador reflected the views of the country in which they are working. ı was told that the majority were as frank as possible in depicting how turkey’s policy of staunchly supporting egypt’s toppled president mohamed morsi ran in contrast to the stances of international and regional players.
  
  this might be one of the last meetings at which civil servants put forward their views and the facts that might run contrary to the readings of the minister, as the risk of political appointees with the same ideological views occupying the top posts in the ministry is now real.
  july/16/2013
  
  kaynak: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/…tvqrq7ios.twitter
• odtu uluslararasi iliskiler mezunudur ve alaninda gercekten basarili bir muhabirdir.
  
  twitter'dan takip etmek icin (bkz: https://twitter.com/barcinyinanc)
• it is ok when arabs kill arabs; not ok when arabs kill kurds
  
  turkey says, openly or by implication, the following about the ıslamic state of ıraq and the levant (ısıl): ısıl is certainly a threat to the world and to turkey. but in truth it is a mosquito caused by a swamp. ınstead of dealing with the mosquito, we need to dry out the swamp. ıf you kill one mosquito, another one will replace it so long as there is a swamp.
  
  operating from that point of view, turkey has pursued a brinkmanship policy vis a vis washington, making its contribution to the anti–ısıl coalition conditional on strengthening the anti–assad coalition, and thus trying to force the u.s. and other western players to act more resolutely on toppling the damascus regime.
  
  regarding the kurdish democratic union party (pyd) in syria, whose armed units are fighting ısıl, turkey says the following, again openly or by implication: the pyd is the outlawed kurdistan workers’ party’s (pkk) branch in syria. the pkk is still considered a terrorist organization not only to turkey but also to the united states and the european union. arming the pyd will mean arming the pkk. ın addition, the pyd has been ambivalent on its position toward the regime in damascus.
  
  turkey is also pursuing a brinkmanship policy vis a vis the pyd by making its facilitation of international support to kobane, where the pyd is fighting, conditional on its commitment to join the anti–assad coalition.
  
  has this policy worked, or is it working? not really. the u.s. is bombing ısıl targets in syria and it has also started dropping arms and ammunition for the pyd. this has happened despite turkish president recep tayyip erdoğan’s very recent statements saying that washington should not expect turkey to say yes to the u.s. arming the pyd. this is taking place despite the fact that washington has not pledged to take definitive action to topple the al-assad regime. all turkey has been able to get in return is a pledge to arm and train the free syrian army (fsa), and it remains to be seen the degree to which this pledge will be fulfilled. turkey also confirmed yesterday that it has allowed (ıraqi) kurdish peshmerga fighters to cross its borders to join syrian kurds.
  
  all of this tells us that turkey says one thing but is doing another, forced by realities on the ground.
  but all of this does not tell us that turkey is by definition a sympathizer of ısıl because it has an ıslamic government. ıt does not tell us that because turkey remains hostile to the pkk it will remain silent to the deaths of syrian kurds just because they are kurds.
  
  turkey has indeed totally mismanaged this whole process; it has used rhetoric that angered its own population and it gave messages that helped fuel the perception that turkey remains idle to the “massacres of kurds.”
  
  but the fact remains that the thousands of syrian kurds who have come to seek refuge in turkey are being looked after.
  
  and all of this does not change the fact that the world has also not taken serious action during a bloody three-year-long conflict that has left more than 200,000 people dead. even the use of chemical weapons did not move the world, but there is a tremendous outcry for kobane, whose existence was unknown to the rest of the world until just a few weeks ago.
  
  ıt’s ok when arabs kill arabs; but it is not ok when arabs decapitate three westerners and start attacking kurds.
  
  that might sound like a gross over-exaggeration but this is how it looks from turkey. the campaign that was triggered worldwide to force turkey to fight ısıl by putting boots on the ground, while the rest of the world watched, has reached such an exaggerated point with criticisms and portrayals of ruthless turks remaining silent to massacres of poor kurds.
  
  again, all of this does not change the fact that turkey is the one to blame for not prioritizing its policies, in the sense that tackling the ısıl threat is a priority even if this comes at the expense of arming the pyg. however, the west is also to blame for triggering a campaign that increases turkey’s resentment, which eventually will lead to more mismanagement.
  october/21/2014
  
  kaynak: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/…245&newscatid=412
• akp ile elele türkiye'yi bugünkü haline getiren uluslararası koalisyonu işaret eden güzel bir yazısı için; http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/…766&newscatid=412