Canadian-based Native American group Tribal Vision recently came to Turkey to present their distinguished songs and dances to people on the occasion of Canada Day (former Dominion Day), which is celebrated by Canadians around the world on July 1 to mark the establishment of Canada as a dominion, on July 1, 1867.

Kane concluded that the Turkish “blend of Islam, democracy, and soft power is a far more attractive regional template than the Iranian narrative of Islamic theocracy and hard power resistance.”

...[There] are a few faces looking less than confident about what comes next. Barbra Taylor, from Hawaii, and Terry Goldsmith, from Bury, Greater Manchester, are two of them. They're not Muslim, but guests for nine days. This is part of "Muslim for a Month" - a programme from social enterprise group The Blood Foundation where participants get to "test-drive" a religion.

Against the backdrop of the Middle East's ongoing upheaval, especially the violence in neighboring Syria, Turkey's once-vaunted "zero problems" foreign policy strategy now looks severely outdated. Though Turkey will continue to seek a balanced, multivector foreign policy...

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. left the country Monday night, bound for Turkey on a weeklong trip seeking a "sister city" relationship with the municipality of Kahramanmaras....The cultural exchange trip is sponsored and paid for by the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians, city spokesman Chris Mims said.

It was the dismal failure of Egyptian leadership in the region that was at the heart of the Arab predicament and the deep admiration of Turkey’s growing soft power. With the Arab Spring and particularly Egypt’s revolution, Cairo is now slowly re-emerging as the most likely candidate to fill the vacuum of strategic leadership in the Arab world.

Turkey is the topic of interest: meetings are being held to discuss it, and writers, journalists, bloggers and even tweeters write incessantly about the lessons the Turkish model holds for Egypt at this crucial juncture while the country readies for a democratic transformation following the great uprising...

By no means has Turkey emerged as a mature power. Its handling of events in Syria and other countries - consisting mostly of rhetoric - shows that it is has yet to assume a position to influence, let alone manage, events on its periphery. But it is still early in the game.