Queenstown Resort College (entrance off 7 Coronation Drive). 5:30 p.m. start.
Please book your seat at [email protected] Entry is $5 at the door
Professor Meliha Altunisik, an international relations and social sciences specialist at Turkey’s most prestigious university, will talk about Turkey’s relations with the Middle East since the Arab uprisings.
These relationships have changed drastically in recent weeks, as Turkish soldiers have entered Syria and Turkey has allowed U.S.-led forces to use an air force base to attack ISIS.
Turkey has long sat at the crossroads of East and the West – geographically, politically, and culturally. With the tumultuous state of its neighbours – economically to the west, and nationally to the east, Turkey is now, more than ever, placed to play a critical role in the development of its region.
Professor Altunisik is the Dean of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara and was formerly Head of the Department of International Relations.
Professor Altunisik received her PhD from Boston University and has been a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University. She is the author (with Ozlem Tur) of the widely acclaimed ‘Turkey: Challenges of Continuity and Change’, the new edition of which is about to be released by Routledge.
She has also published a wide variety of scholarly articles on Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies and affairs. Professor Altunisik is visiting the University of Otago in August 2015 on a William Evans Fellowship, based in the Department of Politics.