Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı
Director, Ankara OfficeÖzgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the director of GMF's office in Ankara, Turkey. Prior to joining GMF, he was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, Ünlühisarcıklı worked as the director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish NGO promoting participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services.
After graduating from the Robert College (Istanbul), Ünlühisarcıklı received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Marmara University and his master's degree from Koç University. He speaks fluent English in addition to his native Turkish.
Media Mentions
Featured Work
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It was expected to be a competitive race, and so it was. It was also expected to be an unfair election, and that, too, it was. ...
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May 17, 2023
The Parliamentary and presidential elections held in Turkey on May 14 place Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been governing Turkey since 2002—first as...
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February 16, 2023
Anniversaries should be celebratory, but some are painful remembrances of events that elicited profound change. ...
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November 15, 2022
In recent weeks, European capitals looked at the news from Washington with varying degrees of expectation and anxiety in view of the Republican Party...
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September 29, 2022
President Vladimir Putin is about to announce that the four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine where Moscow organized sham “referendums” in recent...
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July 20, 2022
One of the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has been global food shortage and increasing food prices....
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After parallel and tightly coordinated processes, Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO. ...
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June 1, 2022
While Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on and Europe’s security remains threatened, there is a strong push from three Eastern Partnership countries,...
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May 19, 2022
Russia’s invasion of and ongoing war in Ukraine is drastically rearranging the European security architecture that has been built since the end of the...
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April 27, 2022
Russia’s war against Ukraine and the resulting geopolitical risks have highlighted not only Turkey’s strategic value but also its need for security...
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April 14, 2022
The “Turkish Perceptions of the European Union” public opinion survey, conducted by The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), presents a...
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January 10, 2022
After almost 20 years of uninterrupted rule by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, first as prime minister and then as president, Turkey may be on the verge of...
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September 7, 2021
Despite the hyperbole and verbal daggers of some in the European and American foreign policy communities over President Biden's withdrawal from...
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May 14, 2020
A weekly transatlantic reading list from the desks of GMF experts:
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April 16, 2020
The refugee crisis on Turkey's borders can only be resolved with a new EU deal. It should build on the current plan but avoid its flaws, writes Özgür...
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October 15, 2019
As Turkey steps up air strikes and a ground offensive launched this week against Kurdish-held areas of northern Syria, we take a look at the context...
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June 24, 2019
Requesting a rerun of the mayoral election in İstanbul was a gambit for President Erdoğan and the odds do not look favorable....
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April 2, 2019
The municipal elections that took place on Sunday in Turkey were a clear win for the opposition....
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April 1, 2019
"Thanks to years of complacency in Washington and Ankara, Turkey’s commitment to NATO has become questionable and it will take very strong political...
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September 5, 2018
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April 15, 2017
Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, director of the GMF Ankara office, joins CNN's Becky Anderson to discuss the outcome of the constitutional referendum held in...
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March 2, 2016
The terrorist attack against military service buses carrying ranked and civilian staff on February 17 in Ankara — the fourth major attack is less than...
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On April 16, Turkey will hold a historic referendum on switching from a parliamentary to a presidential political system....
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A key challenge the new U.S. administration will face in the first 100 days is the partnership with Turkey....
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WARSAW—Tomorrow the foreign ministers of Turkey, Poland, and Romania will meet in Warsaw for the first time in this high-level trilateral format....
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ANKARA — Polarization in Turkey is eroding the platform for a pluralistic democracy and paving the way for populist and majoritarian politics, as well...
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Turkey has experienced numerous terror attacks in 2016....
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The international community has failed to fully grasp the sense of unity and solidarity the recent coup attempt has created among the Turkish...
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Polarization is unique neither to Turkey nor to the current period....
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The United States and Europe cannot be complacent about the risk of conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean....
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Turkey has woken up to a traumatic day with 33 Turkish soldiers killed in Idlib overnight by an airstrike reportedly conducted by Syrian jets....
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Could Turkey’s Elections Reset Relations with the West?...
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ANKARA — The U.S.–Turkey relationship has always been difficult, but never so vulnerable. Diverging priorities and, it is time to say, contravening...
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The situation in Turkey is becoming unacceptable from a Western liberal perspective....
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The attempted coup d'état in Turkey came at a time when no one expected it, and ended very quickly thanks to the determination of the political...
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Photo by Mstyslav Chernov - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, h...
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There is a sense of foreboding in Ankara regarding Joe Biden’s presidency....
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The Edge of the Cliff...
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ANKARA — The June 24 snap presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey will be highly unfair, but real and still competitive....