Kemal Kirişci, an expert on Turkish foreign policy and migration studies, is joining the Brookings Institution in January 2013 as the inaugural TÜSİAD senior fellow and director of the Turkey project, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today. Kirişci will serve within Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE).
The TÜSİAD senior fellow position has been established by a generous gift from the Turkish Industry and Business Association (“TÜSİAD”) to promote greater understanding of Turkey’s foreign policy within Washington and to build stronger U.S.-Turkish relations. Founded in 1971, TÜSİAD is an independent, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting public welfare through private enterprise. TÜSİAD supports independent research and policy discussions on important social and economic issues within Turkey and abroad.
“We are pleased to have Dr. Kirişci join the Foreign Policy program and serve as the first TÜSİAD senior fellow,” said Martin
Indyk, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings. “Kemal brings considerable knowledge of Turkey’s foreign policy and relations with the U.S. and Europe. We
are grateful to TÜSİAD for its generosity in creating this position.”
Kirişci joins Brookings from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul where he has been a professor of international relations and Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration in the Department of Political Science and International Relations. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM). His areas of research interest include: EU-Turkish relations; Turkish foreign policy; European integration; asylum; border management; and immigration issues within the European Union, ethnic conflicts and refugee movements.
Kirişci is the author of Turkey and Its Neighbors: Foreign Relations in Transition (co-authored with R. Linden et al; Lynne Rienner, 2011), Turkey In World Politics: An Emerging Multi-Regional Power (co-edited with B. Rubin; Lynne Reinner, 2001) and The Kurdish Question and Turkey: An Example of a Trans-State Ethnic Conflict (co-authored with G. Winrow, Frank Cass; 1997). Kirişci earned a Ph.D. in international relations from the City University, London, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, and a B.A. in finance and management from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Kirişci also has extensively published articles on Turkish foreign policy, EU-Turkish relations and immigration in academic journals.
Brookings Institution Press Release