{"id":11349,"date":"2023-07-26T11:06:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T11:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2023\/07\/fc-7\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T21:07:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T18:07:51","slug":"turkish-foreign-policy-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-era-fatih-ceylan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2023\/07\/turkish-foreign-policy-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-era-fatih-ceylan\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Foreign Policy on the Cusp of a New Era? – Fatih Ceylan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Milestones in International\nRelations in Two Decades<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the start of the new millennium, several events have been unfolding\nand causing dramatic shifts in international politics. The scene was set by the\nterror acts staged by Al Qaida in the U.S. on 9\/11 2001, culminating in\nmilitary intervention by the latter in Afghanistan and the unilateral operation\nin Iraq on precarious grounds, to be succeeded by the Russia-Georgia war in\n2008, and the Russian illegal and illegitimate occupation and annexation of\nCrimea and subversion in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The final blow came in February\n2022 when Russia re-initiated its aggression in different parts of Ukraine,\nviolating its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout those traumatic years, the steady rise of China has become a\nnaked reality resulting in the strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China\nfocused on the Indo-Pacific region with the recent escalation of tension among China,\nthe U.S., and Taiwan over the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Years of AKP Rule in T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Foreign and Security Policies <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the last twenty years, Turkish domestic politics has undeniably\ntransformed with its ever-increasing imprint on T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s foreign and security\npolicies. In that respect, the main thrust of T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s foreign and security policy\nremained intact in the first eight years of the Justice and Development Party\n(AKP) government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling cadres of the AKP did not tamper with the behavioral patterns\nof Turkish diplomacy predicated on traditional Republican principles and\nvalues. In the first eight years in power (2002-2010), they prioritized further\nimproving T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s relations with the West and its institutions, emphasizing\nEU integration. That quest coincided with the restructuring of the economy and\npolitical reforms, preparing a conducive ground for better and sounder ties\nwith the European countries, supporting its European vocation, which has been\none of the trademarks of its conventional diplomacy since the foundation of the\nRepublic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thrust of Foreign and Security Policies in the Early Republican Era<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly founded Turkish Republic in 1923 first put into effect\ndomestic reforms necessary for nation-building under Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s leadership,\nfollowed by foreign and security policy initiatives in the 1930s designed to\nconstruct a broad belt of\npeace and stability in all directions around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the height of the Turkish War of Liberation, T\u00fcrkiye signed the\nTreaty of Moscow with the Soviet Union in 1921, followed by the Treaty of Kars\nthe same year, to be complemented by the signing of a non-aggression pact in\n1925.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s attempt to build\nan arc of peace and\nstability did not stop with striking an atmosphere of friendship with the Soviet\nUnion in the north. T\u00fcrkiye and Greece signed a series of agreements, including\nbut not limited to the Athens and Ankara Agreements in 1926 and 1930 in the\nrun-up to the Second World War, which opened a cooperative relationship between\nthe two countries for almost three decades until the outbreak of the Cyprus\nproblem in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bilateral rapprochement between T\u00fcrkiye and Greece was crowned with\nthe signing of the Balkan Entente in 1934 among T\u00fcrkiye, Greece, Romania, and\nYugoslavia in Athens at the urging of Atat\u00fcrk. Thus, the bilateral and\nmultilateral frames of cooperation were successfully built in the Western\ndirection of T\u00fcrkiye as part of Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s vision of \u2018Peace at Home, Peace in\nthe World\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Republic did not neglect the \u2018Eastern front\u2019 either. The Treaty\nof Saadabad was signed in 1937 among T\u00fcrkiye, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The portion of the\nMiddle East near Turkey was also the focus of the Republican leadership\nstarting from the Ankara Agreement of 1921 with France, which also recognized the\narea surrounding the Tomb of Suleyman Shah as an exclave of T\u00fcrkiye in Syria.\nThe main driving principle at this period adopted by Atat\u00fcrk was not to meddle\nin intra-Arab issues without prejudice to T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s need to keep good neighborly\nrelations with the Middle Eastern countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a nutshell, T\u00fcrkiye was able to build a web of peaceful relations in its\nhistorical and cultural hinterland in all directions in parallel to improving\nand strengthening its anchor within the European family of nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cauldron of Challenges Since 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of the so-called \u2018Arab Spring\u2019 or uprisings in 2010,\nT\u00fcrkiye\u2019s foreign and security policies started to undergo dramatic changes,\nparticularly from within, geared toward unraveling the very tenets on which it\nwas based until then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2014, when Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea and ISIL\nlaunched terror acts in Syria and Iraq, declaring its \u2018Islamic Caliphate State\u2019,\ncould be considered as the turning point for T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s foreign and security\npolicies. But the real shifting moment came following the failed coup attempt\nby a religious sect, the FET\u00d6. The deepening divergences with the U.S.,\nparticularly on how to shape the future of Syria and tackle the U.S. support to\nPYD\/YPG, an offshoot of PKK in Northeast Syria, was also instrumental in this\nchange. This challenge was exacerbated by open ties between Russia and\nPKK\/PYD\/YPG and its ambivalent attitude when dealing with those terror groups\nin Northwestern Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such circumstances are not only of T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s making, but the Turkish\nleadership took decisions away from the well-established traditional practices they\nhad enjoyed before 2014, which culminated in aggravating the fragile situation\nin Syria, working against T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s interest there and beyond. As a result,\nT\u00fcrkiye was squeezed between the power politics of the U.S. and Russia, not to\nmention the disruptive acts of Iran in the region, against the backdrop of\ndeteriorating economic balances\nin T\u00fcrkiye and overstretching its resources hitting hard at domestic politics\nand society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change did not stop in Syria and extended to Eastern Mediterranean,\ninvolving increasing tension, particularly with Greece and T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Western\nAllies. The ongoing Cyprus problem, waiting for an enduring solution for\ndecades, together with the challenges in searching, drilling, and exploring\nhydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean, further compounded T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s\nrelations with the neighboring countries and led to the militarization of its foreign\nand security policies on a regional scale. Under such conditions, the diplomatic\ntrack, a hallmark of traditional Turkish diplomacy in the past, receded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conundrum represented by the chaos in Libya and its impact on the delimitation\nof exclusive economic zones in the Eastern Mediterranean was also a bone of\ncontention which raised the stakes for T\u00fcrkiye and pitted it against its rivals\nand friends in the region. This has become another serious diplomatic issue for\nT\u00fcrkiye to settle in its immediate vicinity. The broader militarization and de-secularization\nof foreign and security policies have become hallmarks of T\u00fcrkiye in a wider\nregional context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deliberate shift from \u2018Peace at Home, Peace in the World\u2019 to\n\u2018Polarisation at Home, Confrontation in the Wider Neighbourhood\u2019 did not bring\nany tangible and beneficial results. On the contrary, it drifted T\u00fcrkiye to an\narc of loneliness in its historical and cultural hinterland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, in 2021 after realizing that foreign and security policies based\non miscalculation backfired in many aspects, be it domestic or external, the\nTurkish leadership began to set the record straight with a view to turning back\nto normalcy in conducting T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s foreign and security policies reminiscent\nof the past. The idea to normalize relations with regional countries of\nimportance like Egypt, Israel, Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the\nlike gained traction while the Turco-Greek relations became increasingly tense,\nwhich cannot solely be attributed to T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Should Be Done in the New Era?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conditions in international politics have now radically changed. After\nRussia started its second invasion of Ukraine and the increase in tension\nbetween the U.S. and China, the strategic rivalry took center stage in the\nglobal order with far-reaching consequences also in T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s neighborhood.\nHence, on the cusp of an entirely new era, there is a clear need for T\u00fcrkiye to\nreconstruct peace at home and to be an active player in shaping and\ncontributing to global peace and stability, starting from its immediate\nhinterland by giving priority to its well-established patterns of institutional\ndiplomacy. The alternative would be chaotic developments at home and further\nisolation in international arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fatih Ceylan, Ambassador (R.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was born in 1957 in Bursa. He graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences in 1979. In the same year, he started to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He received his Master’s Degree from Rutgers(USA)\/Princeton Universities. He worked at the Embassy of Islamabad, Consulate General in Deventer and Permanent Representation of Turkey to NATO, Embassy in Brussels and Turkey Mission to the EU. He served as the Consulate General in D\u00fcsseldorf and the Ambassador to Sudan and NATO. His last position was Deputy Undersecretary for Bilateral Political Relations. He retired in February 2019. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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To cite this work:<\/strong> Fatih Ceylan, \u201cTurkish Foreign Policy on the Cusp of a New Era?” Panorama, Online, 26 July 2023, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2023\/07\/26\/fc-7\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article has been prepared with the support provided to the International Relations Council<\/a> and the Global Academy<\/a> by the Heinrich B\u00f6ll Stiftung Association Turkey Representative within the scope of the project titled ‘Foreign Policy for the 21st Century; Peaceful, Equitable, and Dynamic Turkey’.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Copyright@UIKPanorama. All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors\/Editorial Board of Panorama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milestones in International Relations in Two Decades Since the start of the new millennium, several events have been unfolding and causing dramatic shifts in international politics. The scene was set by the terror acts staged by Al Qaida in the U.S. on 9\/11 2001, culminating in military intervention by the latter in Afghanistan and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":9751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,486,508],"tags":[656,563,713,788,650],"class_list":["post-11349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-100-years-of-the-republic","category-opinion","category-turkey","tag-english","tag-foreign-policy-and-diplomacy","tag-heinrich-boll-foundation","tag-turkish-foreign-policy","tag-turkiye"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}