vol. 7 | no. 1 | january 2017 winter issue journal of global analysis · and worried that turkish...
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Journal of
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Continuity or Change in Turkish Foreign Policy? Analyzing the Policy Fluctuations during the Justice and Development Party Era By Murat Ülgül*
Abstract For decades, change in Turkish foreign policy has remained as “a neglected phenomenon” in the literature while continuity is explained with two main pillars: Westernization and preference for the status quo. The topic started gaining popularity at the end of 2000s when some conflicts of interest emerged between Turkey and its traditional partners. Scholars mainly explained this change as the result of the new Turkish leadership under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). While the debate in this period provided extensive literature on the subject, the arguments created could not explain the policy fluctuations during the AKP era. In this article, the change in AKP foreign policy is examined during three time periods that show different characteristics in terms of domestic and international opportunities/constraints. It is argued that while Westernization still remains an important pillar in Turkish foreign policy, the main change seems to be in Turkey’s traditional preference for the status quo. Keywords: Foreign policy change, Turkish foreign policy, Justice and Development Party, Westernization, Status-quo, Civil-military relations, Arab Spring
Dr. Murat Ülgül is currently working as a researcher at Karadeniz Technical University. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree from the International Relations Department at Gazi University, the author got his graduate education in the East European and Russian Studies program at Florida State University (M.A.) and then in the field of Political Science and International Relations at University of Delaware (M.A. and Ph.D). His main research areas are ethnic conflict, civil-military relations, Israeli politics, Turkish foreign policy and American foreign policy.
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Vol. 7 | No. 1 | January 2017
Winter Issue
Journal of Global Analysis
Vol. 7 | No. 1
January 2017
Winter Issue
Introduction For several decades, change has been “a neglected phenomenon” in the foreign policy literature for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the static characteristic of the Cold War era. The subject gained little attention in the 1980s, but with a groundbreaking development, the end of the Cold War, more scholars started analyzing why, when, and how a state changes its foreign policy. In similar fashion, change in Turkish foreign policy has been “a neglected phenomenon” in the literature for decades as Turkey’s alliance with Western political institutions as well as the supremacy of the military and bureaucracy in Turkey’s politics provided some degree of continuity in the foreign policy decision-making. Until the late-1990s, scholars mainly focused on the pillars of continuity in Turkish foreign policy, which had been basically Westernization and preference for status quo. This disinterest in change in Turkish foreign policy abruptly came to an end as an alternative voice, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, came to power in 2002. Because the founders of the party were former members of the Islamist Welfare Party and foreign policy makers wanted to re-establish Turkey’s ties with Middle Eastern countries, a “shift-of-axis” argument was strongly voiced as the party consolidated its power in Turkish politics. These arguments reached their zenith in 2009-11 as Turkey’s relations with Israel deteriorated while the Erdoğan government voted against Iran sanctions in the United Nations (UN) Security Council. In this period, several articles, books, policy reports, op-eds, etc. were written on the subject of goal- and orientation-change in Turkish foreign policy. While some were giving voice to an “axis shift” and/or some other fundamental changes in Turkish foreign policy, the majority was arguing that the “new” Turkish leadership was simply following a more activist and multi-dimensional foreign policy without detaching from the Western world. More than the previous decades did, this discussion provided an extensive literature on the subject of change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy. Yet time passes, domestic and international conditions change and former arguments lose their power to explain change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy. In the last five years, fundamental changes have taken place despite the same leadership. In 2009, Turkey was regarded as an example to other Middle Eastern countries; Ankara followed a “zero problems with neighbors” policy while extending its relationship with multiple actors, and; Turkish leaders used dialogue, cooperation and soft power as main foreign policy tools. Today nobody mentions Turkey as a model country as Ankara has to deal with its own internal problems; Turkey’s relations with its neighbors and major powers deteriorated and pushed the Turkish leaders to adopt
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the concept of “precious loneliness,” and security politics and interference in other states’ internal affairs replaced cooperation, dialogue and soft power. As a result of these changes, today it is common to hear comments about the failure of Turkish foreign policy and questions such as “What happened to Turkey’s foreign policy?” Therefore, it is necessary to re-evaluate the change and continuity issue in Turkish foreign policy because those who explained the change with the AKP leadership cannot explain the policy fluctuations during the same leadership. Instead of comparing the pre-AKP and AKP years, this article will mainly examine change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy during the AKP leadership. To do this, I divide the AKP period into three sub-periods, which each involve different domestic and international conditions. The first period includes the years between 2002 and 2009 in which we witness the liberalization and civilian takeover of foreign-policy decision-making. In this period, the decisions on foreign policy cannot be separated from the internal power struggles between different institutions. The second period takes place between 2009 and 2013, which constituted the golden years of the AKP leadership. In these years, Turkish foreign policy took on a more ambitious and activist form as domestic and international developments provided the AKP government an opportunity to realize its objective to make Turkey a regional and global power. The final period starts in 2013 when the domestic and international atmosphere drastically changed while the foreign policy goals and methods of the AKP government took on a more complex form. The main argument of the article is that while it is difficult to prove the “axis shift” argument because of constantly-changing power struggles in the region and Turkey’s inability to play a role independent from the West, the principle of “preference for status quo” was significantly altered during the period of AKP leadership, especially from 2009 to present. The article will continue as follows: First, I will present historical background and a literature review about change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy between the pre-AKP and AKP years. Then I will analyze the three sub-periods of the AKP leadership in accordance with the research question. The final section will summarize the findings of the article. Historical Background and Literature Review Since the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, its foreign policy has been established on two pillars: Westernization and the preference for status quo. Although the founding fathers fought against the Western powers in the war of independence, they sought close relations with their former enemies as soon as the fight was over. This choice had both practical and ideological reasons. Practically, at that time Turkey had to build extensive relations with the West since it shared borders with them through the British mandate in Iraq and French mandate in Syria. More importantly, ideologically the founding fathers believed that the only way to modernize the country was to be included in the Western civilization. Since one-third of the top leadership in this period was occupied by former soldiers in the Ottoman army - including President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Prime Minister İsmet İnönü - and the Ottoman military was the very first institution that was modernized in a European-style, a Western-mindset was quite established among the decision-
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makers. Indeed, on the day the Republic was established, Mustafa Kemal told a French reporter that the new state had no choice other than looking at the West if it wants to enter to the civilized world. The second principle that has shaped Turkish foreign policy, preference for status quo, was also based on the belief-system of the founding fathers. As former Ottoman military officers, the founding fathers were the ones who closely witnessed the end of the Ottoman Empire as a result of ambitious foreign policies. As the new state was born out of the Ottoman Empire, the priority of the leaders became stabilization of the internal conditions while trying to build a new secular, modern and Turkish national identity. This objective necessitated a stable international environment. While Europe witnessed the emergence of nationalist and anti-status quo leaders, the Turkish leaders adopted a motto, “Peace at home, peace in the world,” which linked domestic and international peace together. As a result, the founding fathers were inclined to solve the border problems of their time - Mosul with the United Kingdom and Hatay with France - through diplomacy while they preferred to stay away from regions such as the Middle East whose political order was not yet established. Turkish leaders also refrained from interfering in the internal matters of other states as it expected the other states - especially the Soviet Union - to do the same towards Turkey. In the following decades, Turkish leaders, under the control of the Turkish military and foreign ministry bureaucracy, followed these principles in general terms. Both Westernization and preference for the status quo led Turkey to approach the West, whose political structure was stabilized after the Second World War, while avoiding other areas, especially the Middle East as it became the cradle of wars and instability in the context of Arab-Israeli wars. During the Cold War Turkish foreign policy generally remained passive – with the exception of the Cyprus affair in 1974 - and Western-oriented. The first significant change on this issue came when Turgut Özal, Prime Minister in 1983-89 and President 1989-93, challenged the traditional order as a new international system began to emerge with the end of the Cold War. Being eager to challenge the traditional order, both in domestic and international affairs, and worried that Turkish geostrategic importance may diminish with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Özal sought to follow an active and multi-dimensional foreign policy. In order to increase Turkish political and economic interests, Özal started an engagement policy with the neighboring areas, including the Middle East, which he regarded as a natural market for Turkish goods. During his period, Özal developed a water pipeline project to carry Turkish water to the Middle Eastern countries, including Israel; tried to play a more constructive role to address the Arab-Israel conflict; actively participated in Islamic organizations; suggested establishing a “Turkish common market” with the newly-born Central Asian Republics; played a leading role in the establishment of Black Sea Economic Cooperation; relaxed visa requirements to enter Turkey, and; even approached to the Iraqi Kurdish groups, an issue that was an anathema for the Turkish military. This active policy was followed without detaching from the West as Özal actively supported the United States in the First Gulf War; applied to the European Economic Community for full membership, and; even attempted to resolve the issues of conflict with Greece, a policy mainly unthinkable before him.
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Most of these foreign policy projects failed while Özal’s vision did not make a lasting impact as the Turkish military and bureaucracy reestablished control over Turkish domestic and foreign policies after his death in 1993. In the 1990s, Turkey approached the neighboring areas from a security perspective as it almost went to war against Greece in 1996 over the Imia/Kardak islets and against Syria in 1998 over the latter’s hosting the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. In 1999 Turkey once again seemed to change its foreign policy vision as the European Union (EU) accession process brought some reforms and Öcalan’s capture, as well as the PKK’s dropping arms, relieved the security concerns of Turkey. İsmail Cem, Foreign Minister in 1997-2002, also contributed to this change as he favored an active and multi-dimensional foreign policy, again, without detaching from the Western world. Similar to Özal, Cem envisioned a greater role for Turkey in its region while he successfully brought a peaceful approach to the relations with Greece; yet, his effect too was not long-lasting. As this brief historical background shows, there was a great level of continuity in Turkish foreign policy from 1923 to the end of the century. In general terms, Turkish foreign policy had been passive and Western-oriented and it dealt with the neighboring areas mainly from a security perspective. Indeed, change in Turkish foreign policy became a controversial topic mainly after the AKP came to power in 2002. As its founders were former members of the Islamist Welfare Party and the AKP represented conservative Muslims, change in Turkish policy became an anticipated development. Indeed, as soon as 2003 when the Turkish parliament rejected the deployment of U.S. troops in Turkey to form another front before the Iraq War, “‘What on earth is happening in Turkey?’ has become a familiar cry…around the capitals of the Atlantic community.” With the European opposition to the Iraq War as well, this rejection was not necessarily interpreted as detachment from the West, but with Ankara’s renewed interest in its neighborhood, it was clear that something in Turkish foreign policy was changing. As the main section of this article will show in detail, in its first years the AKP government followed the footsteps of Özal and Cem by following an active and multi-dimensional foreign policy. With Ahmet Davutoğlu as his chief adviser, Erdoğan started an engagement process with the neighboring countries and various regions avoided before, such as Latin America and Africa. At the same time, Ankara gradually solved its problems with the United States and started the negotiation process with the EU. Nevertheless, the discussion about change in Turkish foreign policy restarted in 2009-2011 when Turkey cuts its relations with Israel, hosted Hamas leaders in Ankara, voted against Iran sanctions in the UN, worked closely with Sudan despite the genocide charges against its president, increased its relations with Russia and China, and Turkey’s relations with the EU slowed down. With these policies, some Turkey experts argued about the Islamization of Turkish foreign policy and its detachment from the West. For example, Cornell argued that “the salience of anti-Western and Islamist thinking in the Turkish government” are the reasons behind some Turkish foreign policy decisions. Cohen wrote about the concerns in Washington that “Turkey is coming under the rule of a populist authoritarian regime rooted in Islamism.” More famously, Çağaptay highlighted the axis shift by arguing that Islamist foreign policy drifts Ankara away from its Western allies.
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The “axis shift” arguments started an intense debate about the goals and orientation of Turkish foreign policy. Some agreed with the orientation-change argument but put the blame on the Western countries, especially the EU, that played a significant role in blocking the negotiation process. Taşpınar also acknowledged the change but instead of Islamist ideology he pointed out the “Turkish Gaullism” - growing Turkish self-confidence and independence vis-à-vis the West - and disappointment with the Transatlantic and Western norms as the reasons behind it. Recently, after the Turkish-Western relations deteriorated more, Hoffmann and Cemgil denied the “axis-shift” arguments by claiming that Turkish foreign policy, in fact, has never been pro-Western or pro-American. Similar to Hoffmann and Cemgil, Danforth emphasized the continuity by arguing that pragmatism instead of ideology shaped Turkish foreign policy from Atatürk to Erdoğan and it is misleading to focus on Western and Eastern - or Islamist - identities to explain Turkey’s foreign policy decisions. In this period most of the Turkish scholars denied the axis shift argument; yet, they accepted the goal-changes and evaluated them in a positive perspective. Özcan and Usul argued that the while there are some changes with the AKP leadership as the new leaders sought more active and multi-dimensional foreign policy, it does not mean a departure from the West. Similarly, Başer acknowledged the increased activism in Turkish foreign policy but denied the axis-shift argument by pointing out that being a “member of the Western world” role is “the most stable and dominant Turkish foreign policy role” from 1992 to 2012, the period he examined. Kanat argued that the changes in Turkish foreign policy should be seen as “attempts to create an autonomous, self-regulating, and self confident foreign policy agenda and normalize the previous crisis-driven foreign policymaking of Turkey” instead of attempts to change its international orientation. Similarly, Kirişçi highlighted change in a positive light by pointing out Turkey’s transformation from a “regional coercive power” to a “benign” if not “soft power” as security-oriented policies were replaced by economic interdependence and trade relations which started playing a more important role in Turkey’s relations with the external world. All in all, the important part of the literature concluded that the Erdoğan government was following in the footsteps of Özal and Cem by adopting active, multi-dimensional and constructive foreign policy without detaching from the West. While this debate provided an extensive literature on change and continuity in Turkish policy, most of the arguments are no longer usable because of the recent developments in Turkey and the Middle East. In 2009, despite the presence of axis-shift arguments, Turkey was regarded as a model country which proves that Islam and democracy can live together. American President Barack Obama made his first overseas visit as the president to Turkey to show that the Erdoğan government, leading a secular and democratic Muslim country with a liberal market, can be an example to the religious political parties in the Middle East. In 2016, Turkey is no longer seen as a model country. Instead, Turkey experts in the West highlight rising authoritarianism, growing use of force by the police, jailed journalists, terror attacks in major cities, the renewed Kurdish conflict, etc. and today even Obama is said to consider Erdoğan “a failure and an authoritarian.” In 2009, Ankara was following a “zero problems with neighbors” policy and attempted to solve its foreign policy problems with all neighbors but especially with
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Armenia, Syria and Greece. One of the ultimate foreign policy goals of the AKP government was to transform its conflict-prone neighborhood, especially the Middle East, and Turkish politicians even envisaged a European-Union style organization which would unite the Middle Eastern countries on political and economic terms. Complementing this neighborhood policy, Ankara also attempted to balance its relations with all major powers by increasing its ties with Russia and China. In 2016, these policies have, to a great extent, failed. Turkey’s Armenia and Cyprus openings did not produce any positive result while its relations with Syria, Iraq and Russia have significantly deteriorated. Because of strained relations, today Turkey has no ambassador in Syria, Egypt and Israel. After Turkey’s shooting down a Russian warplane on the Syrian-Turkish border in November 2015, there was even a rumor of war between two countries. Finally, Turkey’s relations with the West are full of problems and tensions, despite some cooperation against terrorism and the refugee flows. All in all, today Turkey has left its “zero problems with neighbors” policy and replaced it with a term called “precious loneliness,” which implies that Turkey is on the right side of history in international affairs. In 2009, Turkey’s main foreign policy tools were dialogue, cooperation and soft power. Indeed, these were the necessary instruments to apply the “zero problems with neighbors” policy. In parallel with the failure of this policy, these foreign policy tools are seemingly being replaced by military power and hostile rhetoric. In 2016, Ankara is one of the ardent supporters of the removal of the Assad regime in Syria and it supports the armed opposition groups which target the regime more than those that target the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). When Moscow actively supported the Assad regime, Ankara did not refrain from shooting down a Russian warplane. In December 2015, Ankara also involved in a dispute with the Iraqi central government over the presence of Turkish troops in Northern Iraq, a dispute that is renewed in October 2016 before the military operation to retake Mosul from the ISIL. The AKP government also seems to be adopting a hostile rhetoric against the governments it has strained relations with, such as Netanyahu’s Israel and al-Sisi’s Egypt. Sometimes it uses the same kind of rhetoric against Western states, as happened recently when the Obama administration refused to identify the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish armed group in Syria, as a terrorist organization. All in all, today we have a very different Turkey from the one we had in 2009. Based on those changes mentioned above, we need to reevaluate the change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy. The debates in 2009-2011 cannot explain what happened in Turkish foreign policy because they mainly focus on the AKP and its leaders in explaining change. Yet, we see different foreign policy objectives and methods between the different periods within the AKP leadership. Therefore, we need to analyze change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy during the AKP leadership as the following three sections will do. Civilian Takeover of Turkish Foreign Policy, 2002-2009 Although the AKP came to power with 34.2 per cent of the national vote in the November 2002 election, the party was clearly lacking the political strength it has today. In this period Turkish politics was largely under the control of the state establishment - military and bureaucracy - with a strong secular-Kemalist ideology and the AKP leadership had to challenge these groups that opposed its conservative-
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religious identity. Indeed, as Stein points out, the AKP “had to contend with the very real threat of another ‘post-modern’ coup until 2008,” and the party managed to consolidate its power only after it survived several crises that put its rule at risk whereas the state establishment lost its power to control politics and society over time. This struggle affected all aspects of political life, especially foreign-policy decisions. As soon as they came to power, the AKP leaders realized that the best way to survive in politics was to liberalize, democratize, and civilize the political system so that the state establishment would find little grounds to challenge a government chosen by the popular will. Being aware that they could not effectively challenge the traditional state actors within the domestic system, the AKP leaders were dependent upon foreign support for their rule. This foreign support for democratization would only come from Western states; therefore, the AKP leadership tried to establish close relations with them. In the first months of AKP rule, the main foreign policy topic was the American demand to open a front in Turkey before the anticipated Iraq War. Erdoğan, who could not become the prime minister until March 14, 2003, because of his ban from politics, was willing to accept the American demand; however, party discipline was not strong at that time and some AKP parliamentarians voted against the resolution on March 1 because of the large-scale public opposition as well as their unwillingness to support the war. As the resolution failed to pass the parliament and it created disappointment in the Bush administration, the AKP government quickly embraced the EU accession process to realize the Western support it sought. The accession process started with the 1999 Helsinki Summit when Turkey was declared as a candidate state. To meet the EU standards, the coalition government under Bülent Ecevit made some constitutional changes that not only affected domestic politics, but foreign policy decision-making as well. The most important of these changes was made to the role and participants of the National Security Council (NSC) through which the state establishment had controlled foreign and domestic politics in the past. Before the amendment, the Council of Ministers had to give “priority consideration” to the decisions of the NSC whose majority was composed of military officers. With the change of the constitution, not only the status of NSC decisions were diminished to being “advisory,” but the number of the council’s civilian members increased as deputy prime ministers and Ministers of Justice were declared as participants to the council. Following the 2002 elections, the AKP rulers simply followed this road as an effective means for diminishing the military’s role in politics. Between January 2003 and July 2004, the AKP government adopted five “harmonization packages” that included political and constitutional reforms in order to meet the EU standards. Further changes to the NSC were made in this period as the office of General-Secretariat of this institution was entrusted to a civilian, an office previously held by a military officer who answers to the Chief of General Staff. Yet, constitutional changes and political reforms were not enough to end the traditional military control of Turkish politics. Some segments of the media, universities, civil society organizations and population were supporting the military’s role in politics as they saw the AKP as a threat to the secular regime. As the EU Progress Report in 2006 stated, even after the reforms the military kept affecting
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politics by making speeches in public on important domestic and foreign issues including Cyprus, secularism and the Kurdish issue. Therefore, the AKP had to challenge the state establishment not only in institutional and constitutional terms, but in political terms as well. Therefore, the government decided to make changes to critical political issues that had previously been controlled by the state establishment. It was clear to AKP rulers that as long as foreign policy issues were evaluated only from a security perspective, it was impossible to end the military control of Turkish politics. For decades security threats have been an effective means to reinforce military control of Turkish politics while military control increased the security mindset in the decision-making structure. As a way to legitimize their role in politics, both the military and bureaucracy kept the critical security issues under their domain and excluded the politicians from the decision-making process. As Ali Balcı noted, the Cyprus issue was a symbol of the military-bureaucracy elites’ hegemony on Turkish foreign policy. Since the conflicts started between the Greek and Turkish populations of the island in 1960s, the state establishment governed the issue on the Turkish side and looked at the issue mainly from a security perspective. For the AKP, bringing a civilian perspective to the Cyprus issue was a means to break the state establishment’s hegemony on Turkish politics. Therefore, the AKP government supported the peaceful solution of the Cyprus issue through the Annan Plan of the UN, which proposed a referendum for a united Cyprus in 2004. Although the plan failed because of the negative vote of the Greek Cypriots, it was an important step to bring a new approach to the traditional security issues dominated by the state establishment. The AKP government followed the same approach to its neighborhood. In the 1990s, relations with the Middle East were shaped by the security considerations based on the Kurdish threat. Iraq, Iran and Syria were frequently blamed for supporting the PKK terrorist organization and, as mentioned, Ankara even came to the brink of a war with Syria on that matter in 1998. During the AKP rule, on the other hand, Turkey’s approach to the region was mainly shaped by economic considerations as the Turkish government and business associations regarded the Middle East as a huge market for Turkish goods. With the AKP’s interest in establishing close political and social ties with the Middle East, the business associations became one of the driving forces of Turkish foreign policy in the region and Turkey’s volume of trade increased from 6.27 billion dollars in 2001 to 43.05 in 2008. This new approach was accompanied with a new Kurdish policy in domestic affairs as the AKP government attempted to solve the 20-year old conflict by political means. All in all, these policies - EU process, Cyprus issue, Middle East rapprochement, and Kurdish policy - were part of an attempt to transform the country from the ‘security state’ to a “trading state,” which would diminish the role of the military and bureaucracy in the decision-making process. Yet, in this early period the AKP government could not show its full potential in the foreign policy arena as the party’s first priority was to survive in its fight against the state establishment. The most brutal part of this fight took place in 2007-2009 when multiple political crises took place in the country. First, a presidential crisis erupted in 2007 when the AKP nominated Abdullah Gül as its candidate for the presidency. The presidency was a critical post for the state establishment as since 1960, the first military coup in Turkish history, it was occupied by former generals or civilians
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favored by the military. Against Gül’s candidacy, the army issued a memorandum reminding the government that the army officers are “staunch defenders of secularism.” The crisis turned the 2007 elections into a vote of confidence for the AKP, which emerged victorious. Gül became the president but it did not end the fight. In 2008, the Constitutional Court opened a closure trial against the AKP, indicting them for being at the center of anti-secular activities. The party survived only by a margin of one vote which showed the fragile balance of power in Turkish politics. While surviving these two crises increased the AKP’s popularity, the Ergenekon trials of 2009 changed the balance of power between the government and state establishment in favor of the former. The trials resulted in the imprisonment of several military officers, journalists and academics on the charge of planning to overthrow the government. Following the trials, the public trust in the army significantly dropped and the AKP government saved itself from domestic restraints. In sum, in the years between 2002 and 2009 it is difficult to claim that there was much change in Turkish foreign policy in terms of Westernization and preference for status quo. Although there was some tension with the United States until 2006, Turkey accelerated the EU accession process in this period and started negotiations officially on 3 October 2005. While the AKP government renewed interest toward the Middle East, this policy was not quite different from the multi-dimensional foreign policy followed by Özal and Cem. Erdoğan’s inclination to accept the deployment of U.S. troops before the Iraq War in exception, Turkey also did not pursue any policy to change the status quo of the region. It is important to remember again that all these foreign policy decisions were taken under the shadow of the domestic struggle between the AKP government and the state establishment. Once domestic restraints were removed, Turkish foreign policy started taking a different shape. Golden Years of Turkish Foreign Policy, 2009-2013 In terms of foreign policy-making, the years between 2009 and 2013 can be called the “golden years” for the AKP rulers as the party faced less domestic and international restraints in shaping its policies. Domestically, as mentioned, the party managed to survive from the threat of military intervention as the government increasingly dominated the decision-making structure. In April 2011, Erdoğan was confident enough to state that they had made significant process in terms of controlling the military. This control increased more when General Işık Koşaner, the Chief of the Army Staff, as well as Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force resigned in July 2011 over their disagreement with the Ergenekon trials. As General Necdet Özel, who replaced Koşaner, worked in sync with the government, the AKP rulers became more tranquil in shaping foreign policy. Furthermore, despite the loss of votes in the 2009 local elections, the AKP rule was mainly unthreatened by the other political parties as the party continued its one-party rule throughout this period. More confident in domestic politics, the party could follow more ambitious foreign policies. Internationally, this period also offered more opportunity for the AKP rulers to follow different foreign policy objectives. Although the EU accession process officially started with the adoption of negotiating framework in October 2005, the negotiations rapidly lost momentum as Turkey declined to open its sea- and air-ports to the Cypriot ships and planes as a part of its responsibility to apply the Additional Protocol of the Ankara Association Agreement to Cyprus. As a result, the EU decided that eight
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negotiation chapters will not be opened and no chapter will be provisionally closed until Turkey assumes its responsibility. In addition to the Additional Protocol crisis, some European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed Turkey’s full admission to the EU and offered a “privileged status” to Ankara instead of full membership. All in all, these developments diminished the eagerness of the Turkish public to join the EU and pushed the Turkish government to pursue alternative foreign policy goals. At the same time, a leadership change took place in the United States as Barack Obama became the President while Hilary Clinton assumed the post of the Secretary of State. When this duo arrived at the White House, their initial foreign policy approach was basically summarized as “anything but Bush,” especially in the Middle East, as both determined to change the American image whose example and appeal were diminished because of their former president’s unilateral and aggressive policies in the region. Obama attempted to change this image with a more multilateral and pro-dialogue approach and Turkey played an important role in his plans. As Tanış explained, for the Obama administration Turkey was an ideal partner in the Middle East where Washington cannot spend any more of its resources. Obama acknowledged the fact that political Islamist parties were too powerful in the region and the ideal policy was to moderate their discourses with the help of Erdoğan, who, in spite of his Islamist credentials, showed a liberal, democratic and pragmatist leadership style. As a result, in his first overseas trip as a president in April 2009, Obama visited Ankara where he said that Turkey, as a predominantly Muslim nation, and the United States, as a predominantly Christian nation, “can build a model partnership” and “create a modern international community that is respectful, that is secure, that is prosperous, that there are not tensions.” With the lack of domestic restraint, frozen relations with the EU and active encouragement from Washington, the AKP government focused more on its neighborhood and realized that it could follow a more active and ambitious foreign policy that may bring the status of regional power. Indeed, in a predictable move for those who want to be a regional power in the Middle East, Ankara confronted Israel as early as January 2009 when Erdoğan slammed Israeli President Shimon Peres - ironically, one of the dovish politicians in Israel - over Tel Aviv’s Palestinian policy at the World Economic Forum. While this unexpected move increased Erdoğan’s popularity both in Turkey and throughout the Arab world, it did not affect Turkey’s relations with the Western world. During this period the Obama administration aimed to extend a hand to the Muslim world while putting some distance - at least in rhetoric - between Washington and Israel, and the EU was far more critical of Israel’s Palestinian policy than the United States. As a result, the Erdoğan government kept playing the Palestinian card in its regional policy, which contradicted, not only with Turkey’s role as a potential mediator in the regional conflicts, but also with the traditional Turkish policy not to actively take sides in the conflicts of others. As Daloğlu notes, criticism of Israel became “the hallmark of Prime Minister Erdogan’s new Middle East policy” and it had reflections on other regional issues as well. For example, when Turkey tried to play a mediator role between Iran and the West on the Iranian nuclear program in 2009-2010, Ankara attempted to link the issue with Israel’s Palestinian policy by claiming that the
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Palestinian issue is at the center of all the problems in the Middle East. At the same time, when the West focused on the Iranian nuclear program, Erdoğan’s political discourse was targeting Israel as he stated that “those who criticize Iran’s nuclear program…need to first give *their weapons+ up.” Turkey’s new active and ambitious foreign policy showed itself more clearly when the Arab Spring starting in 2011, giving an opportunity to the AKP rulers to increase their influence in the region. As soon as the civilian uprisings broke out in the Arab streets, Turkey positioned itself as a regional leader to help the Arab populations to transform their countries from autocratic regimes to popular democracies. While in doing this Turkey claimed to be on the “right side of the history,” as Ayata argues, Ankara also aimed to change the power balances in the region by spearheading the “new Middle East” in which the influence of the West and Israel would be diminished. Therefore, Turkey once more left its traditional policy of “preference for status quo” and actively took sides in the conflicts of others. In Egypt, the AKP officials actively supported and provided political expertise to the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni-Islamist political party, and after Mohammed Morsi from the Brotherhood took the presidential seat, Turkey and Egypt established close political, economic and security relations. In Syria, the Turkish government, after a brief period of attempts to convince Assad to make reforms, took a confrontational stance against the Shiite regime and cooperated with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in arming and training the Sunni rebels. As Karaveli noted, in this period Turkey adopted an “exclusively Sunni cause in Syria” and “*s+ectarian considerations have acquired an importance in Turkish foreign policy as never before.” Finally, in Palestine the Erdoğan government increased its backing of Sunni-Islamic Hamas as Israeli intelligence found that Turkey had replaced Iran as the organization’s top financier and had hosted the Hamas leadership since the organization was expelled from Syria in late 2011. All in all, one can conclude that Turkey’s foreign policy went through some observable changes after 2009. Unlike the early AKP years when the EU accession process was the main priority of the Turkish government, Ankara focused more on the Middle East after 2009 as its involvement in the Palestinian issue increased and the Arab Spring opened the status of regional power to the Turkish politicians. In this period, axis-shift arguments were pronounced although, as mentioned, many claimed that Turkey’s new Middle East policy did not necessarily mean a departure from the West. Yet, it was clear that Turkey’s traditional policy of the preference for the status quo basically changed as the AKP followed more active and ambitious foreign policy by taking sides in the conflicts of others and supporting Sunni political groups in its neighborhood. Turning Tides in Turkish Foreign Policy, 2013-Present The lack of domestic and international restraints was a decisive factor in Turkey’s new focus on the Middle East and its relative success as a candidate for regional leadership between 2009 and 2013. In this respect, it is possible to claim that tides started turning in Turkish foreign policy in the summer of 2013 when political conditions suddenly changed in Turkey and the Middle East. Domestically, between May and August 2013, Turkey experienced violent clashes between security forces and the public after an environmental protest against the demolition of Gezi Park in Istanbul turned into countrywide protests against the AKP government when the
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police used heavy force to suppress the protestors. All of a sudden, several political and social groups gathered in the streets to show their grievances against the AKP government, which led some to describe the events as a “Turkish Spring,” and country-wide protests, taking three months to end with some casualties, increased the political and societal polarization in the country. A few months later, the AKP faced another domestic crisis when a major corruption scandal, involving some cabinet members and their sons, hit the news in December 2013. In a short period of time, the AKP faced two political crises at home, representing the first challenges to its rule since the military-bureaucracy opposition to the party in 2007-2008. Throughout this period, the AKP failed to control the crises without damage. In the protests and corruption investigation, the AKP leaders saw a matter of political survival and adopted a confrontational attitude which cost them the country’s international image and its objective to be a regional model and power. While excessive use of police force in the Gezi Park protests received criticism from several states and international bodies, Erdoğan preferred to describe the protestors as “looters” and “bums” and publicly stated that he could gather ten times the number of people in the streets if he wanted. Furthermore, instead of recognizing people’s grievances and alleviating them, the AKP leadership and the media close to the party relied on conspiracy theories to explain these political crises, as it is claimed that there were some foreign countries, interest lobbies and their domestic allies behind the demonstrations and corruption investigation. While a term called ‘Mastermind’(üst akıl), which mainly shows the Jews as the leader of this foreign plot, was created, Washington also took its share from the conspiracy theories as the CIA was accused of allocating $24 billion to overthrow the AKP government. Summer 2013 was also the time when some international developments started affecting Turkey’s ability to play the role of regional leader. In July 2013, when the Turkish government was dealing with the Gezi Park protests, the Egyptian army overthrew the Morsi government and suspended the constitution. While Morsi’s ouster was welcomed by Israel and Arab rulers who saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their power, and other major powers remained silent, AKP officials made harsh statements against the coup and blamed the Western states, especially the United States, of following double standards in the Middle East by failing to support democracy when it didn’t like the people’s choices, such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas in Gaza. Turkey’s response to the coup resulted with the Egyptian decision to expel the Turkish ambassador in November on the charge of interfering in Egypt’s internal affairs. While Turkish officials kept condemning the military rule in Egypt, Western states as well as Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and the Emirates gave political and financial support to the military government. Turkey’s grand-plan to be the regional and global power was struck even more when the developments in Syria did not take the shape the AKP had dreamed. Unlike the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and contrary to the expectations of the AKP officials who thought Assad would fall from power in a maximum six months, the Syrian regime managed to stay in power although the country turned into ruins and led to new problems for the unstable region. While those escaping from the war flew towards the Turkish border, the rise of the ISIL beyond the southern frontier created an uncontrollable situation for Turkish foreign policy. With the help of Iran and
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Russia, the Assad regime crushed the Muslim Brotherhood network in Syria and resisted against the Sunni opposition groups armed by countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As the Assad regime was involved in war-crimes and human catastrophes, the Obama administration shared Turkey’s demand for Assad to leave the power; however, when the United States supported the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units, to fight against the ISIL and declined to define them as terrorist organizations as Turkey did, it created tensions between Washington and Ankara. As the Turkish officials criticized the United States for not sticking to its red-lines in Syria - when the regime used chemical weapons against opposition groups and civilians - and differentiating between “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists,” Ankara took risky steps such as shooting down a Russian plane violating the Turkish-Syrian border when Turkish officials saw that they were losing the power-game in the region. All in all, from 2013 to 2016 Turkey’s international image dramatically deteriorated as the country found itself in a fight with multiple actors while Erdoğan, once President Obama’s role model for the Middle East, was labeled an authoritarian leader due to domestic developments. How do these domestic and international restraints affect the general principles of Turkish foreign policy? In terms of Westernization, regional developments after 2013 showed that without the robust EU link, which has been attractive to the Middle Eastern states in their relations with Ankara, and the US backing, Ankara alone does not have enough capability and resources to be a regional power in the Middle East. As Kuru points out, after the 2013 military coup in Egypt and Assad’s survival in Syria, Ankara failed to create an alternative bloc that would prevail over the blocs led by Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s standing in the regional power-game slumped more when Putin’s Russia took an opposing stand to Turkey in Syria. As the EU accession process froze and Washington lost its interest in Turkey’s being the model country, Ankara was isolated in international politics more than ever before. Ankara needed to reanimate its close relations with the West and, indeed, the AKP government found this chance when the EU needed Turkish cooperation to deal with the refugee problem while the United States sought Turkey’s help in the fight against ISIL terrorism. However, the refugee issue and terrorism threat could not create an effective rapprochement between Ankara and the West as domestic developments in Turkey kept damaging those relations. Unlike the pre-2009 years when the Western states backed the AKP government against the powerful state establishment in the name of democracy, since 2013 the AKP government has been regarded as the “bad guy” in Turkish politics and the critics of the Turkish government in the West did not welcome cooperation even in dire circumstances. While critical reports and news about democracy and the human rights situations in Turkey did not necessarily stop the urge to build security cooperation with Turkey at the government-level, it led to the flow of mixed messages from the West to Ankara about the future of Turkish-Western relations. On the Turkish side, the criticisms frustrate the President Erdoğan and the AKP officials whereas the need for security cooperation, the ongoing power struggle in the Middle East and the lack of alternative to the West keeps Ankara on the Western side. All in all, although Turkey re-focuses on its relations with the West in this new period, this rapprochement is based on necessity rather than a preference and because of this, it is not clear if Turkey will stay on the Western path.
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On the preference for status quo, it is also possible to observe some degree of backpedaling as Ankara held rounds of reconciliation talks with Israel in this period to fix the relations broken in 2009, and has toned down its criticism of Israel’s Palestinian policy. In addition, similar to the 1990s, Turkey’s primary focus in the region again became the Kurdish threat in its neighborhood which increasingly affects its regional policies. Yet, these developments did not necessarily indicate a return to the preference for status quo. First, similar to the rapprochement with the West, Turkey’s increasing contact with Israel is the result of Turkey’s growing isolation in the Middle East instead of a mentality change. Indeed, Turkey did not give up his interest in being a regional power and shaping the region. The AKP government has maintained its confrontational position against some governments, such as al-Sisi’s Egypt and Assad’s Syria, while President Erdoğan blames Russia and Iran of committing massacres in Syria along with Assad regime. Second, Turkey’s renewed focus on the Kurdish threat did not push Turkey into a defensive position as in the 1990s. Today Ankara could not follow the policy of the preference for status quo even under the Kurdish threat as the political structure of the Middle East is ever-changing and the power struggle is open to different future scenarios. One of these scenarios is the Kurdish political structure in northern Syria and to prevent this Ankara knows it has to follow an offensive foreign policy around its unstable neighborhood. The alternative is to support the central government under Assad’s leadership, which is a total contradiction of the AKP’s Syrian policy in the last five years. All in all, it is impossible to prefer status quo when there is none, and at the time of change the Turkish government tries to play the regional leadership role even though its chances are not as high as in the period between 2009 and 2013. Conclusion This article attempted to explain change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy during the AKP leadership through two main principles that have been followed since the foundation of the Republic: Westernization and preference for the status quo. Recently scholars and experts have given increasing attention to change and continuity in Turkish foreign policy. However, this literature mainly compares the pre-AKP years and AKP foreign policy and focuses on the “axis-shift” arguments which culminated in 2009-2011 as some scholars maintained that Islamist and anti-Western thinking became dominant in Turkish foreign policy decision-making. This article separates from this literature in two respects. First, this article deals with the change and continuity during the AKP leadership under three sub-periods whose domestic and international characteristics differ from each other. Therefore, it refrains from showing the AKP foreign policy as one constant and stable foreign-policy mindset as many scholars do. By analyzing the factors that explain change and continuity in AKP foreign policy, this article focuses more on the policy fluctuations and their reasons than some stable ideological variables. Second, I mainly focus on the principle of the preference for the status quo, rather than Westernization, in explaining change in Turkish foreign policy. While Turkey’s relations with the West has showed significant ups and downs during the AKP years, its objective to change the status quo in the Middle East and make Turkey a regional leader remained constant throughout the AKP rule. The findings show that the Western orientation is a constant phenomenon in Turkish foreign policy despite the fact that Ankara mainly focused on the Middle East
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between 2009 and 2013 and prioritized its relations with the West less than other periods. However, during the AKP leadership the relations with the West were drastically shaped by domestic and international conditions. In the early AKP years, Turkish officials valued the close ties with the West in order to balance the threat of the state establishment to the civilian government. Although the Iraq War and Turkey’s rejection to the opening of a front in its territory caused a rift between Ankara and Washington until 2006, the government pursued the EU accession process which institutionally and politically helped the AKP government in the domestic power struggle. After 2009 relations with the West lost its importance as the EU accession process froze and the Obama administration encouraged Turkey to play an active role in the Middle East. Yet, with the international developments in the Middle East and Turkey’s growing isolation after 2013, Ankara and the West once more started a rapprochement. Yet, unlike in the early AKP years, this time domestic developments did not bring cooperation but caused a rift between the two sides. Although Turkey is still on the path of Westernization as a result of the lack of a potential alternative, it is unclear what the future will bring if there is no change in domestic and international conditions. The article argues that the real change in Turkish foreign policy during the AKP leadership took place on the principle of the preference for status quo. Throughout its history, except small periods during Özal’s presidency and Cem’s foreign ministry, Turkey followed a defensive foreign policy and refrained from getting involved in the internal affairs of other states. In its early years, similar to Özal and Cem, the AKP leaders attempted to follow active foreign policy around its neighborhood and tried to build close relations with multiple actors which were conceptualized with the “zero problems with neighbors” policy. While its main focus was the domestic power struggle, Ankara also played the moderator role in regional conflicts, more famously between Syria and Israel, but it principally avoided interfering in the internal affairs of the other states. This principle seemed changing in early 2009 when Erdoğan started heavily criticizing Israel’s Palestinian policy. As Erdoğan’s popularity in Turkey and on Arab streets increased, the Palestinian issue became the center of Turkey’s Middle East policy. However, the real divergence from the traditional policy of the preference for the status quo came with the Arab Spring in whose wake Turkey attempted to shape the region to its preferences by cooperating with Sunni groups in the Middle East. While this policy poisoned Ankara’s relations with multiple actors in the region and it failed, especially after 2013, Turkey still follows it as there is no more status quo to return to in the region. Although Turkey has little capacity to shape the region as it wants, its leaders will keep trying to influence regional developments and taking sides as a new Middle Eastern order is formed today.
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Notes 1. Huxsoll, Regime, Institutions and Foreign Policy Change, 18-20. 2. Holsti (ed.), Why Nations Realign; Goldmann, “Change and Stability in Foreign
Policy”; Hermann, “Changing Course”; Gustavsson, “How Should We Study Foreign Policy Change”; Barnett, “Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change”.
3. Çağaptay, “Is Turkey Leaving the West?”, 26 October 2009, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2009-10-26/turkey-leaving-west (Accessed 2 May 2015); Özdal et al. (eds.), Mülakatlarla Türk Dış Politikası; Cohen, “Washington Concerned as Turkey Leaving the West”; Yenigün and Efegil (eds.), Türkiye’nin Değişen Dış Politikası; Şahin, “Türkiye’nin Orta Doğu Politikası”; Kanat, “AK Party’s Foreign Policy”; Özdal et al. (eds.), Mülakatlarla Türk Dış Politikası Cilt 2; Kardaş, “Türk Dış Politikasında Eksen Kayması mı?”; Özcan and Usul, “Understanding the ‘New’ Turkish Foreign Policy”; Öniş, “Multiple Faces of the “New” Turkish Foreign Policy”; Çağaptay (ed.), “Turkish Foreign Policy under the AKP”, 2011, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyNote03.pdf (Accessed 2 May 2015).
4. Barkey, “Erdogan’s Foreign Policy is in Ruins”, 4 February 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/04/erdogans-foreign-policy-is-in-ruins/ (Accessed 3 May 2016).
5. İdiz, “What Happened to Turkey’s Foreign Policy?”, 23 February 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/turkey-former-diplomats-say-islamist-outlook-cause-isolation.html (Accessed 3 May 2016).
6. Sander, “Türk Dış Politikasında Sürekliliğin Nedenleri”; Oran, “Türk Dış Politikası”. 7. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite, 260. 8. Karluk, Avrupa Birliği Türkiye İlişkileri, 1. 9. Sander, “Türk Dış Politikasında Sürekliliğin Nedenleri”, 108-110. 10. Şahin, “Türkiye’nin Orta Doğu Politikası”, 10. 11. Ataman, “Leadership Change”; Kirişçi, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign
Policy”, 43-45. 12. Robins, “Confusion at Home, Confusion Abroad”, 547. 13. Cornell, “Axis Shift”, 3. 14. Cohen, “Washington Concerned as Turkey Leaving the West”, 26. 15. Çağaptay, “Is Turkey Leaving the West?”. 16. Akgün, “Turkey”, July 2010, https://mondediplo.com/blogs/turkey-what-axis-shift
(Accessed 7 May 2016). 17. Taşpınar, “The Rise of Turkish Gaullism”. 18. Hoffmann and Cemgil, “The (Un)making of the Pax Turca in the Middle East”. 19. Danforth, “Ideology and Pragmatism in Turkish Foreign Policy”. 20. Özcan and Usul, “Understanding the ‘New’ Turkish Foreign Policy”. 21. Başer, “Shift-of-Axis in Turkish Foreign Policy”. 22. Kanat, “AK Party’s Foreign Policy”, 205-206. 23. Kirişçi, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy”. 24. Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine”, April 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/
magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ (Accessed 8 May 2016). 25. Boulton, “Turkey Says Mideast Needs Own EU”, 23 November 2011, http://
www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/13b35658-15ce-11e1-8db8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz42gpjRcfT (Accessed 9 May 2016).
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26. Reuters, “France’s Hollande Warns of Risk of Turkey-Russia War over Syria”, 19 February 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-france-idUSKCN0VS2JC (Accessed 9 May 2016).
27. Gardner, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy of ‘Precious Loneliness’”, 15 November 2015, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/69662b36-7752-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html#axzz42gpjRcfT (Accessed 9 May 2016).
28. Botelho, “Turkish Leader”, 10 February 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/10/middleeast/turkey-erdogan-criticizes-us/ (Accessed 9 May 2016).
29. Stein, Turkey’s New Foreign Policy, 1. 30. Sever, Abdullah Gül ile 12 Yıl, 43-44. 31. T.C. Başbakanlık Avrupa Birliği Genel Sekreterliği, “Türkiye’de Siyasi Reform”,
2007, http://www.ab.gov.tr/files/pub/tsr.pdf (Accessed 11 May 2016). 32. Avrupa Komisyonu, “Türkiye 2006 İlerleme Raporu”, Brüksel, 2006, 6-7, http://
www.mfa.gov.tr/data/AB/IlerlemeRaporu_8Kasim2006_TamamininCevirisi1.pdf (Accessed 11 May 2016).
33. Balcı, “1990 Sonrası Türk Dış Politikası Üzerine Bazı Notlar”, 94. 34. Tür, “Economic Relations with the Middle East under the AKP”, 593. 35. Hale and Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey, 91. 36. Casier and Jongerden, Nationalism and Politics in Turkey, 30. 37. Gürsoy, “Turkish Public Attitudes toward the Military and Ergenekon”, 11. 38. Koç, “12 Eylül’den 12 Haziran’a Siyasi Partiler”, 16-17. 39. Ross, Doomed to Succeed, 342. 40. Tanış, POTUS ve Beyefendi, 44-45. 41. CNN, “Obama Says U.S., Turkey Can be Model for World”, 6 April 2009, http://
edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/06/obama.turkey/index.html?iref=mpstoryview (Accessed 14 May 2016).
42. Daloğlu, “Turkey Takes Sides”, 16 April 2010, http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/04/16/turkey-takes-sides-2/ (Accessed 14 May 2016).
43. Hürriyet Daily News, “Stop Palestinian Suffering for Mideast Peace, Says Erdoğan”, 19 October 2010, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=stop-palestinians-suffering-for-mideast-peace-says-erdogan-2009-10-19 (Accessed 14 May 2016).
44. Haaretz, “Turkey PM”, 31 October 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/news/turkey-pm-if-you-don-t-want-iran-to-have-nukes-give-yours-up-1.5055 (Accessed 14 May 2016).
45. Ayata, “Turkish Foreign Policy in a Changing Arab World”, 97,99. This policy, in fact, was in sync with the first reaction of the Obama administration towards the Arab Spring as the White House officials emphasized the concept to be on the “right side of the history” while they see the demonstrations, which are regarded as “the antithesis of al Qaeda,” as an opportunity to redesign the region in the direction of popular democracies led by moderate Islamic parties. Ross, Doomed to Succeed, 353-354.
46. Gümüşçü, “Turkey’s Peace Initiatives in the Middle East”, 44-45. 47. Karaveli, “Why Does Turkey Want Regime Change in Syria?”, 23 July 2012, http://
nationalinterest.org/commentary/why-does-turkey-want-regime-change-syria-7227 (Accessed 15 May 2016).
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48. World Tribune, “Turkey Replaces Iran as Primary Funding Source for Hamas”, 22 December 2013, http://www.worldtribune.com/turkey-replaces-iran-as-primary-funding-source-for-hamas/ (Accessed 15 May 2016).
49. Seymour, “Istanbul Park Protests Sow the Seeds of a Turkish Spring”, 31 May 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/31/istanbul-park-protests-turkish-spring (Accessed 15 May 2016).
50. Esposito et al., Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring, 43. 51. Akyol, “Unraveling the AKP’s ‘Mastermind’ Conspiracy Theory”, 19 March 2015,
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/turkey-zion-protocols-akp-version.html (Accessed 16 May 2016).
52. Barkey, “Obama’s New Problem”, 23 January 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/turkey-united-states-obama-pronlem.html (Accessed 16 May 2016).
53. Stein, Turkey’s New Foreign Policy, 45-47. 54. ibid., 65. 55. Radikal, “Erdoğan”, 9 May 2013, http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/erdogan-
suriyede-kirmizi-cizgi-coktan-asildi-1132885/ (Accessed 16 May 2016). 56. Daily Sabah, “No Differentiation Between Terror Organizations, President Erdoğan
Says”, 23 February 2016, http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2016/02/23/no-differentiation-between-terror-organizations-president-erdogan-says (Accessed 16 May 2016).
57. Kuru, “Turkey’s Failed Policy toward the Arab Spring”, 109. 58. Deutsche Welle, “European Parliament Slams Turkey over Deterioration of Rights
and Democracy”, 14 April 2016, http://www.dw.com/en/european-parliament-slams-turkey-over-deterioration-of-rights-and-democracy/a-19189464 (Accessed 17 May 2016); United States Department of State, “Turkey 2015 Human Rights Report”, 18 April 2016, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/253121.pdf (Accessed 17 May 2016).
59. Deutsche Welle, “Turkey’s Erdogan Rejects Western ‘Lessons in Democracy’”, 5 April 2016, http://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-erdogan-rejects-western-lessons-in-democracy/a-19163842 (Accessed 17 May 2016).
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