Türkiye: The Enigma with Dr Greg Simons, Assoc Prof Ayfer Erdogan & Mats Nilsson on The Protagonists

Türkiye: The Enigma

"The Türkiye Enigma" describes a nation caught between East and West, tradition and modernity, secularism and faith, evolving in ways that challenge simple categorization.

Its foreign policy is often hard to predict with its balancing act between global powers - US, Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Türkiye's President Erdogan's shifting alliances and "charm offensives" with former adversaries (like Israel, Greece) adds to the confusion.

Türkiye under President Ergodan is a huge challenge for West. Is it friend or foe?

Is Türkiye an indispensable NATO ally: a bridge between Europe and Asia, Bosporus gatekeeper, and bulwark against Russia, Iran, and Middle Eastern chaos?

Mike Ryan HOST


GUESTS:

Dr. Greg Simons, Geopolitical Commentator & Expert In Media & Communications.

Dr. Greg Simons is a geopolitical commentator and a Professor based at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, Daffodil International University in Bangladesh. He has expertise on Russian mass media; terrorism; public diplomacy; the relationship between politics, information and armed conflict. He is currently working on the role of information and communication in contemporary geopolitics.

Assoc. Prof. Ayfer Erdogan, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Expert In Contemporary Middle East Politics.

Ayfer Erdoğan is Associate Professor in the department of Modern Languages at Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul. She holds MA in International Relations and Politics with specialization in Eurasian Studies from Uppsala University and PhD in International Relations and Political Science from Yıldız Technical University. Her research interests include authoritarianism, democratization, mass movements, political transitions post-Arab Spring, civil-military relations and political Islamist movements in the MENA region. She has widely published on a range of topics surrounding the contemporary Middle East politics. She is the author of Arab Spring-Arab Fall: Divergent Transitions in post-2011 Tunisia and Egypt (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2021). She is the co-editor of Political Islam at the Crossroads: Adaptation and Resilience in Contemporary Middle East, which was released by IB Tauris in August 2025.

Mats Nilsson, Legal Historian & Geopolitical Analyst.

Mats Nilsson is a legal historian & geopolitical analyst. He is self described as a newshound, LL.M, author, traveler, conditional pacifist, tsundokuist, epicurean, with 15 years of gov. service, no NATO, Eurasian Sovereignist.

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