Aylık arşivler: Mayıs 2019

The Unbreakable Bond Between Turkey’s Democracy and Foreign Policy

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May 31, 2019

A fundamental reality of foreign relations is that a country’s international standing is largely a reflection of its internal strength. And this invariably depends on respect for the rule of law, strong institutions and a broad national consensus on where the country should be heading.

And, geographic location largely impacts a country’s foreign policy.

This is a given which can constitute a challenge in itself. The contrast between Portugal’s and Turkey’s locations is a striking example. Portugal is a member of NATO and the EU and its only neighbor is Spain, another NATO and EU member. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 kilometers, the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union. Portugal is located at the western end of Europe where peace, prosperity and stability have reigned for decades. It is far away from conflict areas. Okumaya devam et →

Fighting for Survival?

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May 22, 2019

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) principal theme in the recent municipal election campaign was “the fight for Turkey’s survival”. The party and its supporters in the media claimed that Turkey was under the siege of external powers which were determined to block Turkey’s path to becoming a global player through an array of conspiracies. Who those powers are, was never spelled out. Nonetheless, Turkish government’s disappointment with Western reaction to the Gülenist coup attempt of July 15, 2016, continuing frustration with the support extended to the PYD/YPG and the s400s/s35 conundrum offer some clues and these only point toward the US and the EU, in other words, Turkey’s traditional Western allies. Okumaya devam et →

On US-Russia Relations and Iran

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May 16, 2019

During his first visit to Moscow on 6-8 July 2009 President Obama tried to “reset” relations. Unfortunately for the international community this failed to materialize. The Arab Spring led to a new set of confrontations. Snowden affair became an irritant and led to the cancellation by Washington of an Obama-Putin summit that was to take place during the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg on 5-6 September 2013. Yet a brief encounter of the two leaders there paved the way for the agreement on the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons only to be followed by the crisis in Ukraine. Okumaya devam et →

The Last Exit

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May 9, 2019

That Turkey has a strategic location is an axiom of our foreign policy. Although this is generally presented as an asset, it has always been a double-edged sword since we border on conflict areas, prominently among them the Middle East. In the past, we believed that non-involvement in regional problems particularly inter-Arab feuds, doing our best to control damage and to promote stability served our interests.

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had severe consequences for Turkey’s security, trade and economic relations with the region. Later, the US invasion of Iraq, the Arab spring, the Syrian conflict and the rise of the Islamic state threw our immediate vicinity into turmoil. Okumaya devam et →