Thread by @RudawEnglish

The next panel is James Jeffery, former ambassador to Iraq and Turkey talking about "Turkey's Centennial: 100 hundred years after the Ottoman Empire" moderated by Dr. Mohammed Shareef
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"Strategic, strong, surrounded, and status quo" former US Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey James Jeffery said describing Turkey #ErbilForum2023

"It not only has the second biggest NATO force, it knows how to use it and it is an experienced force," Jeffrey said about the Turkish army while noting the country's "strong" capabilities to deal with challenges.
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"Turkey is surrounded by problems, and to some degree, enemies. The two biggest are a wannabe hegemon - Iran, and a wannabe global hegemon - Russia," Jeffrey said.
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"Turkey as a country, as a culture, thinks in 19th-century terms, and its fear is not that the Greeks have a few troops within an island," Said Jeffery "but that someday there will be an alliance between Greece and some big power that will try to squeeze Turkey"
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"Ankara has now re-engaged with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to show its flexibility in terms of foreign policy" - Jeffery
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"No country has done more for Ukraine than Turkey," Jeffrey added about the key role played by Ankara in the wake of the Russian invasion
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"What the State Department pictures as its mission in any country is to save that country from itself and make it look like ... California, make it look like Texas. This is our self-assumed role," Jeffrey continued.
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"In each case, Turkey was responded in the sense that it is surrounded, in the sense that it has to protect its own borders," Jeffrey, speaking about Turkey refusing the US to attack Iraq from its territory in 2003.
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"It is hard for the United States, and to some degree the Europeans, to accept that a country is going to be 70% with you when you want it to be 100%," Jeffrey said regarding Turkey refusing to fully meet US and EU demands.
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"We're still here in Erbil, we're still in Baghdad, we're still in Syria... we are not going anywhere," Jeffrey said of US presence in the region
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Turkey was "very hurt" by Europe's refusal to integrate it into the European Union, according to Jeffrey.
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"The European Union is postmodern, it's post-war, and Turkey... these are messy situations that the European Union didn't wanna get involved in," Jeffere, talking about the regional conflicts that Turkey is involved in.
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"The Kurds in Turkey are split. Erdogan, traditionally, received 30-35% of the Kurdish vote, second only to the Kurdish party - it's basically the political wing of the PKK," Jeffrey said, referring to the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
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"We have seen no progress on any of the underlying issues in Syria from the Assad government ... I'm sceptical, and I don't think the Turks are optimistic at this point," Jeffrey concluded.
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