‘Erdogan’s Turkey in the Balkans: A Rival of the West?’ Panel Discussion

Since the early 1990s, Turkey has been intimately involved in the politics of the Balkans. From Bosnia to Bulgaria and from Greece to Montenegro, it has seen its economic footprint as well as ties to local Muslim communities grow. Turkey has championed the inclusion of the Balkans into Western institutions, such as NATO, and contributed to regional cooperation and stability. At the same time, skeptics argue that the illiberal regime established by president Tayyip Erdoğan poses a political and ideological threat to struggling democracies of the region as well as to the EU’s policy of enlargement promoting accountability, human rights and the rule of law.

The panel convened by the Forum on Southeast Europe brings together leading experts to explore Turkey’s security, economic and cultural ties to the countries of the region as well as its competition for influence in relation to the EU and Russia. For more information, please visit here.

Participants include Lisel Hintz, Johns Hopkins University; Nora Fisher Onar, Coastal Carolina University; Dimitar Bechev, Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies (CSEEES) Fellow; and Erdağ Göknar, Duke University.

This event is presented by the Forum on Southeast Europe with support from the Center for Global Initiatives and CSEEES.