Thursday, May 01, 2008

Alexander Dugin's Networks in Turkey

Key points from Marlène Laruelle's paper on "Russo-Turkish Rapprochement through the Idea of Eurasia: Alexander Dugin's Networks in Turkey," given at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, DC, Tuesday, April 29, 2008:
  • The concept of concept of Eurasia (Avrasya) was developed independently in Turkey, and its exponents were initially critical of Dugin's Eurasianism.
  • This, however, has now changed. In 2003, the Turkish translation of Dugin's Geopolitics was published as Rus Jeopolitigi Avrasyaci Yaklasim, and according to Laruelle "seems to have gone over well with part of the Turkish military"--especially among "army officers disillusioned by Turkey’s loss of clout in NATO and shocked by the Iraq war."
  • Notable Turks who have participated in events or projects of Dugin's include
    • Suleyman Demirel, formerly president of Turkey
    • Rauf Denktash, at that point president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
    • Kurtulus Taskent, Turkish ambassador to Russia
    • Abdulkadir Ates, representative of the Turkish delegation to the OSCE
  • Dugin's main supporter in Turkey is the Turkish Workers’ Party (Turkiye İşçi Partisi), a "small communist-leaning party."
  • Nothing concrete has yet come of this, though one day it might. A continuing aim is "an interparliamentary Eurasian assembly, including not only Russians and Turks, but also representatives of Iran and the Arab states."

2 comments:

Flávio Gonçalves said...

I thought Eurasia was more popular among the nationalist Turkish party (grey wolves).

Anonymous said...

The name of the party is Worker's Party (İşçi Partisi). Türkiye İşçi Partisi (Worker's Party of Turkey) was a pro-Sovietic party that merged with the Communist Party of Turkey back in 1987. On the other hand, Worker's Party is Maoist and also maintains strong Turkish nationalist leanings. Mehmet Bora Perinçek (who is also the son of the party's chairman) is particularly functional in relations of the party with Dugin's International Eurasian Movement. However, an ordinary affiliate of the party will be found simply ignorant of more quintessential traditionalist thinkers, say Guénon or Evola.