Presented in cooperation with the SIPA Turkish Initiative

Featuring Dr. Soner Cagaptay
Director, Turkish Research Program
Washington Institute for Near East Policy

After intense negotiations and missed deadlines, Turkey has begun accession talks with the European Union--a milestone in its two-century quest to become a full-fledged member of the Western world. Dr. Cagaptay will analyze the dramatic transformation of Turkey under the ruling Justice and Development Party and comment on the unprecedented impediments on the path toward Turkey’s EU membership.

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Turkish Research Program. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations and Turkish politics and nationalism, publishing in Middle East Quarterly, Middle Eastern Studies, and Nations and Nationalism. His commentaries have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and La Stampa, and he appears regularly on CNN, Fox News, NPR, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, and al-Hurra. He also serves as chair of the Turkey Advanced Area Studies Program at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.