Garčević Discusses Turkey, the West, and the Trans-Atlantic Relationship
Ambassador Vesko Garčević, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, participated in a panel hosted by the Institute of Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Emmanuel College on Turkey, the West & the Trans-Atlantic Relationship.
The panel featured Garčević as well as Dr. Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, Endowed Chair of International Studies and Professor of Political Science Elizabethtown College, and Hoyt Yee, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs.
In his remarks, Garčević said that the West often misunderstands Turkey’s interests in the Balkans and underestimates its strength. In the Balkans, Turkey and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are not in disagreement, as is the case with other parts of the world. Garčević noted that Ankara uses the European Union and NATO to advance its foreign policy agenda by supporting the Euro-Atlantic and the EU perspective of the region and using EU and NATO as a framework that facilitates and legitimizes the Turkish presence in the Balkans by providing its troops to the EUFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina and KFOR in Kosovo.
During his diplomatic career, Ambassador Vesko Garčević dealt with issues pertinent to European security and NATO for almost 14 years. In 2004, he was posted in Vienna to serve as Ambassador to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He had been a Montenegro’s Ambassador to NATO from 2010 until 2014 and served as Montenegro’s National Coordinator for NATO from 2015 until he joined the faculty at the Pardee School. Learn more about Ambassador Garčević on his faculty profile.