Avoiding a Collision Course: Perspectives on Turkey-NATO-Russian relations and the Syria Crisis

A panel discussion about the tensions between Turkey and Russia in light of the Syria crisis
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
GENERAL WESLEY K. CLARK (ret.) serves as Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates, a strategic consulting firm; senior fellow at UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations; Trustee of International Crisis Group. General Clark has authored four books and is a founding member of the Clinton Global Initiative's Energy & Climate Change Advisory Board, and Director of the Atlantic Council. Clark retired as a four star general after 38 years in the United States Army. He graduated first in his class at West Point and completed degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University (B.A. and M.A.) as a Rhodes Scholar. While serving in Vietnam, he commanded an infantry company in combat, where he was severely wounded and evacuated home on a stretcher. He later commanded at the battalion, brigade and division level, and served in a number of significant staff positions, including service as the Director Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5). In his last assignment as Supreme Allied Commander Europe he led NATO forces to victory in Operation Allied Force, saving 1.5 million Albanians from ethnic cleansing. His awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Defense Distinguished Service Medal (five awards), Silver star, bronze star, purple heart, honorary knighthoods from the British and Dutch governments, and numerous other awards from other governments, including award of Commander of the Legion of Honor (France).
RAIFE GÜLRU GEZER is the Consul General of Turkey to Los Angeles. Born and raised in İstanbul, she graduated from the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Boğaziçi University in the year 2000. She completed her M.A. in European Political and Administrative Studies at the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium in 2010. Raife Gülru Gezer started her career in the year 2000 as an editor at the international new department of the NTV news channel. In 2002 she joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and began working at the European Union Political Affairs Deputy Directorate as a Candidate Career Diplomat. In 2007 she was posted to the Turkish Embassy in Damascus. In 2009 she joined the Turkish Permanent Representation to the EU. Returning to Ankara in 2010 Ms. Gezer was appointed Chief of Cabinet of the Under Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After serving for four years in Ankara, she was appointed as the Consul General of Turkey to Los Angeles, where she has assumed her duties on September 15, 2014.
DANIEL TREISMAN is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 1995. His work focuses on the politics and political economy of Russia, and on comparative political economy (in particular, the determinants of good government and the politics of macroeconomic policy). His latest book is The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev, The Free Press, 2011.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
ASLI Ü. BÂLI is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. She teaches Public International Law, International Human Rights and a seminar on the Laws of War. She joined UCLA from the Yale Law School where she was the Irving S. Ribicoff Fellow in Law, and coordinator of the Middle East Legal Forum. Bâli is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and as an articles editor of the Yale Journal of Human Rights & Development. Her Ph.D. in Political Science is from Princeton University, where her dissertation concerned the challenge of enforcement in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. After law school, she worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in the New York and Paris, France offices.
Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Burkle Center for International Relations, Center for Near Eastern Studies, International & Comparative Law Program (ICLP) at UCLA School of Law