Somewhat overshadowed by his longtime ally, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has begun to carve out a more independent, progressive path.

Steven A. Cook discusses Turkish domestic politics after the uprisings.

Steven A. Cook says the Turkish model of military rule is wrong for Egypt.

Turkey's ruling party is sometimes criticized for being Islamist or ideological, but its policies remain essentially nationalist and commercially opportunistic.

In Reset, Stephen Kinzer argues that the United States should partner with Iran and Turkey to promote democracy and combat extremism in the Middle East. Although it is hard to imagine Iran as a friend of Washington, Turkey is ready to play that role.

Turkey hopes to be a global power, but it has not yet become even the regional player that the ruling AKP declares it to be.

Under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey's foreign policy is becoming more Islamic. Can the country's history of cooperation with the West survive?

Bosnia was once a poster child for successful postwar reconstruction; today, it is on the verge of collapse.

The ruckus over the election of a religious conservative as Turkey's president has exposed the illiberal nature of Turkish secularism -- as well as the pragmatism of the country's reformed Islamists. Preserving democracy in Turkey by keeping the military out of politics will be a tall order, but the future of the Muslim world's most promising democratic experiment is at stake.

In a departure from its traditional foreign policy, Turkey is now becoming an important player in the Middle East. Turkey's growing concern over Kurdish nationalism has brought Ankara closer to the governments of Iran and Syria, which also contend with restive Kurds at home. Although troubling, this shift could be an opportunity for Washington and its allies to use Turkey as a bridge to the Middle East.

Given the atrocities they have suffered in the past and the autonomy they are enjoying now, Kosovo's Albanians will never accept continued Serbian sovereignty. The time has come to give them what they want -- independence.

Greece appears to have averted imminent default, but its recovery prospects remain clouded by the severity of its planned austerity measures and the impact cutbacks have already had on its stricken economy.

Even as Greek leaders agree to new austerity measures, the IMF is calling on Greece's official creditors to take losses on its bond holdings. Analysts and policymakers increasingly question the wisdom of EU-mandated austerity measures at the expense of growth.

Policymakers and market actors are increasingly concerned about a disorderly Greek default, while many analysts question the wisdom of Germany's strict austerity approach to the escalating eurozone sovereign debt crisis.

New Prime Minister Lucas Papademos faces daunting challenges to rescue Greece's economy. A fiscal collapse, analysts say, will also raise questions over the eurozone's ability to manage debt crises in other struggling European economies.

EU leaders are making plans for a Greek exit from the euro, even as Prime Minister George Papandreou scrambles to garner support for the new EU rescue package and tougher austerity measures.

Despite a German parliamentary vote to boost the eurozone's bailout mechanism, Greek sovereign debt levels appear unsustainable and a default may be inevitable. Most economists think the question now is how to make the process orderly.