Sinan Ülgen

Turkish government officials are careful in their public statements regarding the results of the U.S. presidential elections to avoid leaving room for misinterpretations from Washington and to prevent possible shadows on their relations with the new president, whoever that may be.

The Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives by the European Commission to make Europe climate neutral by 2050, can create cooperation between the EU and Turkey to work towards same objectives, according to an official.

Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, said Ankara has taken a major step by ratifying the Paris Agreement.

New York Times correspondent to Turkey, Patrick Kingsley writes a piece entitled “Turkey and Greece Trade Jabs in Island Dispute” where he lays out the recent escalation in tensions between the two countries over the rocky isles of Imia in the eastern region of the Aegean Sea. From the NYT article:

Deepening the current Customs Union deal between Turkey and the EU will enable the country to develop a new economic narrative, according to Sinan Ülgen, the founder of Istanbul Economics and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

Turkey?s top business club?s head has said organization members find Turkey?s negotiations with the European Union as a point of bargaining for other issues, including the refugee issue, very odd, adding that Turkey is neither Europe?s gatekeeper nor buffer zone in the fight against the current refugee crisis, a reference to a recent New York Times article. 

It is customary for Turkish governments to keep the bar high, endorse a maximalist position and spend unnecessary political capital by asking for the impossible ahead of a negotiation. Thank God; at one stage common sense would prevail (dictated by a better analysis of what is at stake by insisting on the impossible) and Turkey would back down to a more rational line.