COMMENTARY

Autumn 2009

by Mustafa Bilgin

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Stephen Larrabee sees Turkey’s improved relations with the Arab world as an important development in Ankara’s foreign policy, pointing out that this is especially true of Iran and Syria, with which Turkey had bad relations during 1970s and the 1980s. He also draws attention to Turkey’s zealous mediation efforts on the Palestinian question. Yet to my mind his article does not fully reflect the character and development of Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Middle East. The historical process of Turkey’s foreign policy is not as simple as Larrabee suggests, but instead reflects a more complex course of action. The general line of Turkey’s foreign policy, especially regarding the Middle East is not a Stop-Go process punctuated by sharp applications of the brakes. Rather it is of an evolutionary nature; Turkish foreign policy is characterised by continuity and consistency, even if there have been some zigzags in its direction.

Turkey’s external policy has had a dual nature; it focused on close cooperation with the west but at the same time pursued good relations elsewhere, especially with the Middle East. Strategic and security imperatives were the main drivers, but political and economic factors played their respective roles until the end of the Cold War.

Of course, it was Atatürk who set the principles of this ‘dual’ East-West approach, and after an initial period of coolness, Atatürk from 1930 onwards began to show a keen interest in Middle Eastern affairs. This policy culminated in the 1937 Sadabad Pact defining its borders with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and thus reinforcing Turkey’s standing as a regional power. Atatürk never fully turned his back on the Middle East whatever much of the existing literature may suggest, although it is true that he was less interested in the region than up until late 1920s in his internal reform programme.

After President Atatürk’s death in 1938, his successor İsmet İnönü followed a rather passive policy in both eastern and western directions. This was an important departure from Atatürk’s foreign policy, and the words ‘caution’ and aloofness’ used by Larrabee really describe foreign policy under President İnönü, especially vis-à-vis the Middle East. İnönü’s primary objective was to search for security against the Soviet threat, especially in collaboration with Britain and the U.S.

From 1938 to 1950, following this period of inactivity on foreign policy, Atatürk’s legacy was taken up by the Democrat Party’s government led by President Celal Bayar and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes for the next ten years. The Democrat Party not only secured Turkey’s NATO membership but also established close relations with the West, and also pursued activist policies in the Balkans and the Middle East, with Menderes’ conclusion of the 1955 Baghdad Pact that attempted to link Turkey with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Britain in security framework.

The Menderes era ended when there was of a military coup in 1960, and that resulted in another break in the dual structure of Turkey’s foreign policy. Turkey thus adopted a cold attitude towards the Middle East until Turgut Özal’s Motherland Party came to power in 1983 and opened a new era not only in domestic terms but foreign policy too. For the first time in modern Turkish history, Özal changed the country’s economic, political and social structures by introducing extensive liberal reforms. Economic imperatives took on a primary importance in Turkish politics, but Özal also shifted foreign policy towards economic concerns, and these soon predominated over strategic and security considerations.

Single party governments came to an end in Turkey after Özal’s death in 1993. Coalition governments had to face major economic problems, and a marked increase in Kurdish separatist PKK terrorism. Once again this caused Ankara to focus on domestic politics, with security taking priority. The result was inevitably a rise in tensions with Syria, Iraq and Iran, a situation that continued until late 2002, when the AKP government came to power.

The AKP years have in many respects seen a continuation of Özal’s policies, with the new government continuing to carry out many of the liberal reform programmes first introduced by the Motherland Party. The AKP government under Prime Minister Erdoğan’s leadership has, though, pursued much broader political, economic and strategic objectives in international affairs than its predecessors. AKP has even put together a strategic plan that aims to make Turkey a world power by 2023.

Whether this plan will ever be realised must be a matter for debate, but the ‘rhythmic’ diplomacy pursued by Erdoğan and his close associates suggests they are intent on achieving it. Besides improved relations with the Greater Middle East and the Muslim countries of the Far East, Turkey’s budding ties with Russia and Brazil and its preparation for economic and political expansion in Africa are all signals that the AKP’s policy aim is to elevate Turkey from its present regional status to becoming a truly global power.