Peace Picks April 22-26:

1. Between Turkish Sunnis and Iranian Shia Influences: Islamic Revival in Azerbaijan

Date and Time: April 22^nd 2013, 4:00-5:00 pm

Location: Woodrow Wilson Center

1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004

Speakers: Bayram Balci

Description: Azerbaijan has historically experienced three main influences, Russian secularism, Ottoman Sunnism and Iranian Shiism. In the two decades since the end of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan is once again a space of competition between different religious influences. An Islamic revival underway in Azerbaijan has awakened the old cleavage between Shia and Sunni Islam.

Bayram Balci contends that the Islamic influences from Iran (Shia) and from Turkey (Sunni) are recreating new dividing lines between Azerbaijani Shia and Sunni Muslims. In his talk he will analyze the various aspects of Shia and Sunni revival, including the roles played by Turkey and Iran, and how Azerbaijan is reacting to these new religious cleavages.

Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/between-turkish-sunnis-and-iranian-shia-influences-islamic-revival-azerbaijan

2. The Kurdish Initiative v2.0: Can Turkey Resolve it This Time?

Date and Time: April 23^rd 2013, 12:00-1:30 pm

Location: Georgetown University

37 St NW and O St NW, Washington, DC

Intercultural Center 241

Speakers: Hamid Akin Unver

Description: Emerging from the ashes of a similar attempt in 2009, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched a more ambitious process in late-2012 towards the peaceful resolution of its most fundamental problem: the Kurdish question. The ‘new deal’ touches upon almost all of the taboo issues of the question, including the disarmament and disbanding of the PKK, formulating a new definition of citizenship in the new Constitution and easing the imprisonment terms of the organization’s dreaded leader, Abdullah Öcalan. But what is different this time? What led to this new process and can it work? What are the potential opportunities and pitfalls? Will the new process spill-over to Syria and Iraq, and how will it change the dynamics of the region’s power dynamics?

Register for this event here: http://unver.eventbrite.com/

3. How Turkey’s Islamists Fell Out of Love with Iran: The Near Future of Turkish-Iranian Relations

Date and Time: April 23^rd 2013, 3:00-4:00 pm

Location: Woodrow Wilson Center

1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004

Speakers: Hamid Akin Unver

Description: Turkish-Iranian relations have long been characterized by ideological polarity. Ever since the Ottoman expansion into the Levant in the early sixteenth century and the Safavid Empires acceptance of Shiism as the official imperial religion, relations between these two empires have been defined along the prime schism in Islam. From 1520 to 1920s this schism defined Ottoman-Safavid relations. Akin Unver argues that it was only during the modernist-revolutionary period of Ataturk and Shah Pahlavi that Iran and Turkey established good relations on secular-modernist lines, which defined the course of the relationship until the Islamic Revolution.

After the 1979 revolution, Irans Islamist regime emerged as the clear anti-thesis of a secular Turkey and two countries relationship was only sustained by political Islamists on both sides. According to Unver, this 1979-2010 Islamist connection is also being reversed by the sectarian faultlines unearthed by the Arab Spring. Irans rapid fall from grace with Turkish Islamists is one of the most important recent structural shifts in the Middle East, Unver suggests. Such a break is far from marginal and yields several important points for consideration.

This shift, Unver argues, validates the Ataturk- Pahlavi example, which shows that detente in Turkish-Iranian relations can only happen when both countries are ruled by a secular-modernist regime. If either countrys ruling government has an Islamist identity, relations can only improve to the extent dictated by the Ottoman-Safavid divide. If Islamism dictates both countries policies, then strategic conflict is inevitable, and the Sunni-Shiite historical memories and symbolism related to Karbala are evoked by both sides.

Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/how-turkey’s-islamists-fell-out-love-iran-the-near-future-turkish-iranian-relations

4. Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards is turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship

Date and Time: April 23^rd 2013, 4:30 pm

Location: American Enterprise Institute

1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036

Speakers: Ali Alfoneh, Frederick W. Kagan- , Mehdi Khalaji, Karim Sadjadpour

Description: Iran is currently experiencing the most important change since the revolution of 1979: the regime in Tehran, traditionally ruled by the Shia clergy, is transforming into a military dictatorship dominated by the officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As IRGC commanders have infiltrated Iran’s political, economic, and cultural spheres, they have eschewed diplomatic norms and left few policy options for the US other than to unsuccessfully contain the threat. Is Washington prepared to tailor its strategy based on an evolving Iranian power structure? What will further advances by IRGC leaders portend for Iran’s strategic calculations? Ali Alfoneh explores these and other issues in his new book ‘Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards Is Turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship’ (AEI Press, April 2013). At this event, Alfoneh and panelists will discuss the rise of the IRGC in Iran and the resulting challenges for American interests in the Middle East and beyond.

Register for this event here: http://www.aei.org/events/2013/04/23/iran-unveiled-how-the-revolutionary-guards-is-turning-theocracy-into-military-dictatorship/

5. The Future of Israel and Palestine: Expanding the Debate

Date and Time: April 25^th 2013, 9:00 am

Location: Rayburn House Office Building

45 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC

B338 & B339

Speakers: Stephen Walt, Henry Siegman, Philip Weiss, Hussein Ibish

Description: The Middle East Policy Council invites you and your colleagues to our 72nd Capitol Hill Conference. This special conference will be a discussion about expanding the space in U.S. media to encourage a more frank public debate on U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. Live streaming of this event will begin at approximately 9:30am EST on Thursday, April 25th and conclude around noon. A questions and answers session will be held at the end of the proceedings. Refreshments will be served.

Register for this event here: http://www.mepc.org/hill-forums/frank-discussion-israel

6. The New Egypt: Challenges of the Post-Revolutionary Era

Date and Time: April 25^th 2013, 1:15-5:15

Location: Center for Strategic & International Studies

B1 Conference Center
1800 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006

Description: Following its 2011 revolution, Egypt has been undergoing a period of political upheaval and transition toward a still uncertain new order. The direction the country chooses – and its future relations with the West and its Middle Eastern neighbors – will have profound ramifications throughout its region and the wider world.

The panels include some of Egypt’s most prominent personalities, who have been at the forefront of developments in post-revolutionary Egypt, presenting a unique opportunity to discuss the country’s future global role and policies with some of the most influential actors in Cairo. The panelists are part of a larger delegation of Egyptian leaders attending the inaugural conference of a new global forum, the Williamsburg-CSIS Forum, a meeting that constitutes the first such high-level gathering outside Egypt since the fall of the Mubarak regime just over two years ago.

Register for this event by emailing: williamsburgforum@csis.org