Lesley K. Dudden

Research Assistant

Lesley K. Dudden was formerly a research assistant with the SETA Foundation at Washington DC. She recently completed coursework for her master’s degree in International Affairs, with concentrations in European & Eurasian Affairs and International Security Politics from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Global Studies from Nebraska Wesleyan University. Previously, Lesley has spent nearly 3 years living in Turkey as first a Critical Language Scholar at the Georgetown University McGhee Center, later spending a semester at Koç University and a year as a Boren Scholar at Boğaziçi University. She also spent 5 months in Germany studying European Security at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include Turkey-U.S. relations, Turkish history and foreign policy, and transatlantic relations.

• US-Turkey Relations under The AK Party

  This almanac provides the synopsis of bilateral relations between the US and Turkey during the past fifteen years of AK Party rule in Turkey, starting with the March 1st crisis. During this period, AK..Read more

• The KRG Risks Turkey Ties

  If you ask representatives from the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, they will stress that Monday’s referendum paves the way for the KRG to be a stable and democratic regional partner to its exter..Read more

• Turkey-KRG Relationship: Mutual Interests, Geopolitical Challenges

  This analysis outlines the main drivers of the relationship between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).In less than a week, on September 25, the KRG is planning to hold a referendum o..Read more

• EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement: Too Big to Fail

  The analysis outlines the process through which the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan (JAP) on refugees came into being and examines the impact of the agreement, including its challenges and successes ..Read more

• EU-Turkey Relations Held Together by Mutual Interest

  Last week, Turkish leadership was in Europe for both a NATO summit in Brussels and talks with top EU officials. These have been trying times for Ankara’s relationships with its western neighbors, an..Read more

• Turkey Strikes Sinjar

  Overnight on April 24, Turkish warplanes struck positions in Iraq’s Sinjar region and in Northeastern Syria targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG). Since t..Read more

• EU – Turkey Relations on the Brink?

  It is hard to believe that just over a year ago we were expecting a renaissance in the EU-Turkey relationship. The refugee agreement was freshly inked and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had just retu..Read more

• Astana and the emergence of a Turkish-Russian partnership on Syria

  On January 23rd and 24th Syrian opposition and government forces convened for the first set of talks since Geneva in April 2016. Expectations for a significant breakthrough in Astana were low, especia..Read more

• The Freezing of Turkey’s EU Membership Negotiations

  Increasingly sour rhetoric between Turkey and the European Union has contaminated the very question of Turkey’s status as an EU-candidate country. On November 24, a majority of the European Parliame..Read more

• Turkish concerns over the U.S. plan to retake Raqqa

  In Syria, the U.S. has walked a delicate line between its preference for Kurdish fighting groups in the north of the country, and its indispensable relationship with Turkey. Washington’s continued r..Read more

• Turkey and the Manbij Offensive

  In Syria, the U.S. has walked a delicate line between its preference for Kurdish fighting groups in the north of the country, and its indispensable relationship with Turkey. Recently, however, the pac..Read more

• Is Germany’s Armenian Resolution a Spoiler for the EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement?

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Turkey in February signaled a sense of German commitment to bolstering its relationship with Turkey. The meeting, one in a series of several Merkel visits ..Read more

• The Nagorno-Karabakh Flare Up: Back to Frozen Conflict Status?

  Nearly four weeks have passed since the April 2nd military flare up in the de facto independent region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Deadly incidents are not uncommon in this “frozen conflict” but the mos..Read more

• The EU-Turkey Refugee Deal: Will It Be Enough?

  Last week’s negotiations between the EU and the Turkish government were yet another attempt to deal with the flow of refugees into Europe. It may be overly optimistic to believe the deal will be imp..Read more

• Merkel’s Visit to Turkey: Inching Toward Better Cooperation?

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s return to Ankara for diplomatic meetings with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has sparked humor that the Chancellor spends more time meetings with her Turkis..Read more

• 2016: A Hopeful Year for the Advancement of Turkey’s EU Accession?

  Cyprus, refugees, 3-billion Euro, and Customs Union negotiations. What do these all have in common? They are all critical issues for Turkey’s stalled EU accession process, and all currently experien..Read more

• Turkey’s Troop Deployment to Mosul

  Turkey’s decision to bolster its presence in northern Iraq coincides with an overcrowding of hands in the proverbial pot that is the multinational efforts against ISIS. Baghdad has not reacted warml..Read more

• Turkey Downs a Russian Jet: What Happened and What it Means

  Russian violations of Turkish airspace have been frequent in the run-up to the incident despite Turkish warnings they would not be tolerated. On November 24, 2015 an Su-24M tactical bomber of the..Read more