Violent Non-state Actors and the Syrian Civil War (PDF)

Ozden Zeynep Oktav is a Professor at Istanbul Medeniyet University in the Department of International Relations. She is the author of the books entitled Turkey in the 21st Century Quest for a New Foreign Policy (2011),  Limits of Relations with the West: Turkey Syria and Iran (2008), The Changing Dynamics of the Arab Gulf and Saudi Arabia-US-Iran Relations (2011) and the co-editor of Turkey in the 2000's: Opportunities, Risks and Crises (2015), GCC-Turkey Relations: Dawn of a New Era (2015). She published many articles on Turkey-Middle East relations. She was awarded the Government of Turkey, Council of Higher Education scholarship in 2011 and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey scholarship in 2013. She was a visiting Researcher at Cambridge University, UK and St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK in 2011 and 2013 respectively.

Emel Parlar Dal is an Associate Professor at Marmara University's Department of International Relations. Having completed her graduate studies at Paris Sorbonne University, she conducted research at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva in 2010-2011 and at St. Anthony's College Middle East Centre, Oxford University in 2013. Her articles have covered, inter alia, Turkish foreign policy, Turkey as an emerging power, Turkey's global governance policies compared with those of the BRICS, Turkey-Middle East relations and the role of violent non-state actors, and Turkey's development cooperation policies in Africa compared to China's. Her recent publications have appeared in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, Turkish Studies, International Journal and Perceptions and she recently edited a special issue on MIKTA for Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis with Professor Andrew Cooper from University of Waterloo. She is the editor-in-chief of Rising Powers Quarterly.

Ali Murat Kursun is a research assistant at Marmara University's Department of