From zero problems to leading the change: making sense of transformation in Turkey’s regional policy

This policy brief engages the ongoing debate among political analysts who question the course of Turkish foreign policy and raise the provocative question whether Ankara’s ambitious ‘zero problems with neighbors policy’ has failed.

The brief maintains that Turkey’s regional policy is still influenced by the same doctrine of the central country, which suggests continuity in Turkish leaders’ approach to Middle Eastern affairs. As in the pre-Arab Spring years, they are still driven by a desire to create a regional order in Turkey’s neighborhoods, but the brief acknowledges that Turkish foreign policy also experienced a transformation in the sense of a shift of emphasis away from the principle of zero problems with neighbors towards the principle of striking right balance between freedom and security, both components of central country doctrine. As the disrupted domestic order in transition countries poses threats to the region at large, Turkey’s proactive policy aims at reestablishing domestic order on the basis of democratic principles.

The brief concludes with a discussion of the major limitations on Turkey’s ability to manage the new regional transformation in the Middle East and North Africa in the wake of the uprisings.

The Turkey Policy Brief Series, published jointly by IPLI and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), offers analytical coverage of Turkey's domestic and international affairs. Its analysis focuses on the study and debate of Turkey's current and evolving geopolitical context.

The four earlier titles in the series first published in 2012 are:

+ Meeting the Geopolitical Challenges of the Arab Spring:
A Call for a joint EU-Turkish Agenda by Günter Verheugen

This policy brief discusses the potential for cooperation between Turkey and the EU in the countries that are going through political transformation in the Middle East and North Africa.

+ Religion and Secularism in the Modern World: a Turkish Perspective by Mehmet Görmez

This policy brief presents an alternative perspective on the relationship between religion and politics. The author argues that the Muslim world, which is going through a process of evaluating its own age, manifests different forms of secularism, though in an unconventional sense.

+ Principles of Turkish Foreign Policy and Regional Policy Structuring by Ahmet Davutoğlu

This policy brief elaborates the principles of Turkey's foreign policy as the country responds to the regional political transformation. The brief argues that Turkey sees the regional transformation as a natural process and works to devise suitable policies to cope with the challenges.

+ The Spirit of the Truman Doctrine: 65 Years of Strategic Partnership between the United States and Turkey by Joshua W. Walker

In this policy brief, the author argues that revitalization of a six decades old alliance that has primarily relied on converged geostrategic realities and a partnership of mutual visions and shared values is the preferred outcome in U.S.-Turkey relations.

Further Turkey Policy Briefs published in 2012 included:

+ Turkey’s Mediation and Friends of Mediation Initiative

+ Portugal and Turkey: An Increasingly Substantive Relationship

This policy brief argues that Portugal increasingly values its relationship withTurkey, and there was no reason to fear in Ankara that the change of government inPortugal, in June 2011, could trigger a change in the bilateral relationship. Portu-guese and Turkish national interests are not absolutely symmetrical, and this meansthat the relations, both at bilateral and multilateral levels, are not without its pointsof divergence. However, the reasons that support a cooperative relationship faroutweigh factors behind a potentially conflicting bilateral relationship. Thus, thedeepening political and economic relations means that the bilateral relationship islikely to gain increasing substance in the forthcoming years

IPLI: Turkey Policy Brief Series http://www.scribd.com/collections/3462146/IPLI-TEPAV-Turkey-Policy-Brief-Series-2012-English

ESO: Background information: Foreign relations: Policy struggles to keep up with rush of events http://www.europeansources.info/record/foreign-relations-policy-struggles-to-keep-up-with-rush-of-events/

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