A panel titled Turkish Foreign Policy in 2014 took place on Dec. 30 in Ankara. Coordinated by the SETA Foundation, the aim of the panel was to discuss what happened in Turkish foreign policy during 2014 within regional references such as the U.S., EU, Russia and the Middle East. The participants were SETA Foreign Policy Director Ufuk Ulutaş, chair of Academia of Diplomacy in the Foreign Ministry, Mesut Özcan, professor at Kültür University and director of the Global Political Trends Center, Mensur Akgün and professor at Şehir University, Vügar İmanbeyli. The panel was moderated by SETA President Burhanettin Duran.Stressing the fact that Turkey-U.S. relations had been blighted with U.S. President Obama's indecisiveness in his Syria policy, Ufuk Ulutaş said: "Both countries' policies in Syria are seriously different. This lack of consensus is also reflected in the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) crisis. While Turkey gives more importance to an extensive fight against ISIS, considering that ISIS has a sociological ground and the result of the havoc in the region, Obama displayed an indecisive attitude on this issue." Describing the policy Obama followed as a "disaster," Ulutaş pointed to traumatic effects in the Iraq war and the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya as triggering this failure in Syria and claimed that the mistaken strategy of the fight against ISIS accordingly brought failure in Kobani as well. He also mused as to whether diplomats around Obama are tired of his irresolute policies, namely Secretary of State John Kerry. "I would not be surprised if Kerry writes his memoirs after his retirement and talks about Obama with a harsher tone than Hillary Clinton did," he wondered. Mesut Özcan underlined that the ISIS crisis caused Iraq and Turkey to leave other problems aside and create a positive atmosphere to rebuild relations. Özcan also said that he predicts the positive developments will continue in 2015 between Turkey and Iraq and said: "Turkey's Middle East policy did not just affect the relations with countries in the region, but also affected relations with global actors."Evaluating Turkey's relations with Russia on the panel, Vügar İmanbeyli indicated that Turkey-Russia relations in the 2000s saw the fourth and most intense and intimate period in history. He said, "Russia tilts to being an authoritarian and totalitarian regime," and emphasized that Russia has no problem in bilateral relations with Turkey, but problems are seen in regional issues such as Crimea, where people live in difficult conditions in terms of agriculture and tourism. Regarding the stability seen in Turkey-EU relations through 2014, Mensur Akgün said that Cyprus constitutes the most challenging hurdle in Turkey's EU bid. "[Greek Cypriot President Nicos] Anastasiades was among several Greek Cypriot politicians who were open for the solution of this problem. However economic crises crippled him and caused him to display hesitation in the peace talks. He tried to cut the negotiation process a few times and he did it with the Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa warship's going to the region." Akgün also said that Turkey only supports the two-state solution unless the negotiation process restarts.