Turkey's 17th general election was never an election about who would win; it was a foregone conclusion that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would do that and that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his final term as the prime minister, would be given not only the mandate to govern but also the moral authority to forge Turkey’s future in the next four years and, arguably, beyond. READ MORE

• By Mehmet Ogutcu, Formely Turkish Diplomat, Head of OECD Global Forum and currently Multinational Executive and Sir David Logan, Former UK Ambassador to Turkey and Chairman of British Institute in Ankara  |  Published on EGF: 21.07.2011  |  Security
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There is a certain understanding amongst Middle East politics experts that a game breaking event of cataclysmic proportions hits the region once every ten years or so. September of this year will mark the 10th anniversary of the unimaginable acts of terrorism which were perpetrated in New York in September 2001 by Arab suicide bombers.

• Dr. Marat Terterov  |  Published on EGF: 18.07.2011  |  External Relations
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Like all revolutionary movements, the Arab Awakening burst upon the world in early 2011 both with breathtaking suddenness and as an overdue response to long-neglected societal tensions. Almost overnight, authoritarian leaders were swept from power on a wave of mass - but notably peaceful - demonstrations calling for change. READ MORE

• Huseyn Gun  |  Published on EGF: 18.07.2011  |  Security
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Insights into Turkish domestic and international politics during June 2011

Key Points:

• Despite the fact that the ruling AKP did not gain the electoral majority it requiredto unilaterally re-write the country’s constitution, the party continues to be the overwhelmingly dominant player in the Turkish political landscape.


• As was inevitably the case with Turkey’s position towards Libya following prolonged civil conflict in the country, Ankara’s position towards Syria is slowly but surely adjusting towards a tougher stance


• Turkey continues to keep one foot in Nabucco’s door, and the other in bilateral energy arrangements with neighbouring states. READ MORE

• EGF Editorial  |  Published on EGF: 14.07.2011  |  External Relations
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By Naim Ameur,
Senior Manager, Prime Ministry of Tunisia
EGF Affiliated Expert on Maghreb politics

Tunisia embarks upon the process of transition to democracy

It is now a well established fact amongst both the general public as well as the specialist of Middle Eastern politics that Tunisia under the almost-quarter century long rule of former President, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was managed by a highly restrictive and rather authoritarian political system. The system empowered key pro-regime political instruments such as the Constitutional Democratic Rally simultaneously to ensuring that opposition political parties remained largely powerless or even being loyal to the regime. Other regime opponents, such as Tunisia’s Islamists, found themselves in exile and for the most part expelled from the country. While this is not surprising, given the dearth of democratic political culture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this likewise ensured that the country remained a “political wasteland” under its former president, who created what some local scholars now refer to as “political desertification”. READ MORE

• Naim Ameur  |  Published on EGF: 11.07.2011  |  External Relations
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ISSUE #23
06/27/2011
On 24 June 2011, the Kiev Pecherskyy district court started a preliminary hearing of the criminal case against Ukrainian opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. She is accused of abusing power, which allegedly took place when she signed gas contracts with Russia in 2009. READ MORE

• Gorshenin Weekly  |  Published on EGF: 29.06.2011  |  External Relations
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Gorshenin Institute conducted a round table called “The relations between Ukraine and Russia after Ukraine signs the FTZ agreement with the EU”, where experts discussed the future of Ukrainian-Russian relations in the event of Ukraine signing the Free Trade Zone Agreement with Europe.

The President of expert consulting firm “NEOKON”, Mikhail Khazin, thinks that if Ukraine enters a Free Trade Zone with the EU it can lose the Russian market and a number of its industries. READ MORE

• Gorshenin Institute  |  Published on EGF: 29.06.2011  |  External Relations
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A wide strip of mainland and continental shelf territory starting from the Rus- sian sector of the Arctic up to the Arabian Peninsula can be labelled an Arctic - Arabian hydrocarbon belt (CH-belt) of Eurasia. It is the strip where the major mainland oil and gas fields are located on the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula countries. As the production of hydrocarbons has been developing, transport routes to the markets of their consumption, the major of which is the European Union, started to branch off this diagonal CH-belt of Eurasia in the latitudinal direction. Practically, these transport routes connect the area of production (upstream) with the consumption market (downstream).

• Mykhailo Gonchar, Alexander Duleba, Oleksandr Malynovskyi  |  Published on EGF: 27.06.2011  |  Energy
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ISSUE #21
06/13/2011
On 7 June 2011, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov visited Moscow. During his visit, the Ukrainian prime minister and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, participated in a meeting of the Committee on Economic Cooperation of the Ukrainian-Russian Interstate Commission. READ MORE

• Gorshenin Weekly  |  Published on EGF: 17.06.2011  |  External Relations
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Gas negotiations were derailed, there will be a scandal at the end of the year - Experts

The Gorshenin Institute has held a round table devoted to the topic of “GAS RELATIONS BETWEEN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA” during which experts discussed the prospects for revising the gas contracts and the future of the Ukrainian gas transportation system. READ MORE

• Gorshenin Institute  |  Published on EGF: 17.06.2011  |  External Relations
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