Washington D.C. – Public event at Carnegie: Trials, Tribulations, and Crises - The Road to Turkey's June 12 Elections

Henri Barkey – Gerald Knaus – Orhan Kemal Cengiz – Marina Ottaway

9 May 2011

at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20036-2103

Read more about this event on Carnegie's website or listen to the event's audio recording.

As protests spread through the Middle East, Turkish political parties are preparing for an election this summer that will likely spark significant political reforms, including the possibility of a new constitution. In the run-up to these elections, Turkey is experiencing an increasingly acrimonious debate, contentious trials of military officers and Kurdish activists, and the maneuvering of a Supreme Electoral Council which created havoc first by banning a number of independent Kurdish candidates and then reversing the decision. What is expected to happen on the campaign trail? How is the election likely to change Turkey? Will the Arab Spring have an impact on the election?

Gerald Knaus (Chairman, European Stability Initiative; Associate Fellow, Carr Center, Harvard Kennedy School), Orhan Kemal Cengiz (President, Human Rights Agenda Association; lawyer, human rights defender and newspaper columnist), and Henri Barkey (visiting scholar in the Carnegie Middle East Program and Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Professor at Lehigh University) discussed Turkey's upcoming elections and the role of the turmoil in the Middle East. Marina Ottaway (director of the Carnegie Foundation's Middle East Program) moderated.

This event was jointly organised by the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace and ESI