Etiket arşivi: Turkey-Arab Spring

The Frustration of Waiting

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February 27, 2017

Turkey’ ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) saw the Arab Spring as a historic opportunity to play a central role in reshaping the Middle East. Through this role, Turkey was to become region’s leading nation, hence a global player. The theorists of this approach banked heavily on Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in countries where regimes were likely to fall. The theory had multiple deficiencies, primarily among them the indisputable reality that Arab countries would never, ever subscribe to a neo-Ottoman regional order. A democratic Turkey inspiring peoples and leading by example was another story. Okumaya devam et →

From Arab Spring to Europe’s Autumn of Refugees

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September 3, 2015

The West has misread and mismanaged the Arab Spring. The first glaring mistake was the Sarkozy-led Libya intervention (*). PM Cameron readily became his partner and President Obama felt that he had to join in.

In introducing Resolution 1973 (2011) on Libya Alain Juppé, then Minister for Foreign Affairs of France, said the world was experiencing “a wave of great revolutions that would change the course of history”, as people throughout North Africa and the Middle East were calling for “a breath of fresh air”, for freedom of expression and democracy. Such calls for democratic transition had echoed through Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. Everyone had witnessed the events with great hope and he believed “this new Arab springtime is good news for all”. The changes required the international community not to “give lessons”, but to help the people of those countries build a new future. He said that the urgent need to protect the civilian population had led to the elaboration of the current resolution, which authorized the Arab League and those Member States wishing to do so to take all measures to protect areas that were being threatened by the Gaddafi regime. “We have very little time left — perhaps only a matter of hours,” he said, adding that each hour and day that passed “increased the weight” on the “international community’s shoulders.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, France, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States voted for the resolution. Brazil, China, Germany, India and Russia abstained. So much for the “international community” myth… Okumaya devam et →