In fact, perhaps everything is being somehow recapped within the following sentences by an unusual Turkish university professor, in his very tick and heavy book called 'Strategic Depth'. He was, back in 2001, pointing the direction of the foreign policy 'should go' in the following sentences:
''The Middle East policy of Turkey has to be seriously revised in line with the new international conjuncture. After losing the most strategic zones of the Middle East during the first quarter of the last century and then experiencing an alienation process with the region (...) Turkey now has to reevaluate its relations with this region fundamentally.''
''Especially the tense relations with the EU that gradually make the membership process impossible, also make it inevitable to develop a comprehensive regional strategy towards the Middle East. A Turkey that simultaneously splits with Europe and the Middle East cannot be successful in its regional and continental policies.''
The author of these lines is now the FM of Turkey, Mr Ahmet Davutoğlu. Raised in a conservative, very religious circle just like the PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Davutoğlu now seems to be able to find an opportunity to implement these ideas within the so-called 'Muslim-democrat' government of Turkey.
During the crisis in Davos World Economic Forum in January 2009 in which the battle of words occurred in between Mr Erdoğan and the Israeli president Shimon Peres, Mr Davutoğlu was the chief foreign policy advisor of the government. The reason for this fight in Davos was the Operation Cast Lead of Israel in Gaza which was just ended back in those days and caused more than 1,400 Palestinian civilian casualties. Towards the end of this discussion Mr Erdoğan was yelling at Mr Peres in front of cameras and hundreds of audience saying 'You know how to murder very well!'
Eventually the Gaza Filotilla crisis in which nine Turkish nationals have been killed by the IDF forces occur now when Mr. Davutoğlu is the foreign minister. And this time Mr Erdoğan describes Israel as a country which implements 'state terrorism'. In between these two major crisis, one should note here that the two countries also experienced a series of other diplomatic crises.
Regional ambitions
Some observers see this latest incident as a road accident of an ambitious new Turkey. They say Turkey who wants to become a 'regional power' uses Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a way to improve its influence in the Arab world. Apparently this interest is not at all unilateral. Maybe not more influential but Turkey has become a country in the region which is now much more wondered than ever before. In this respect it is obviously not a coincidence that some Turkish soap operas are becoming more and more popular in this so called 'Ottoman geography'. This is a geography that Mr Davutoğlu doesn't hide that he thinks Turkey has to raise its influence and he details his ambitious targets from Africa to Balkans, from Caucasus to the Middle East. Not surprisingly in this respect, Mr Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has opened more new embassies in Africa (and in Latin America) than any of the previous recent governments.
However, in contrast, Mr Davutoğlu's 'zero problem policy' with the neighboring countries seem not to function that perfect in practice. Turkey still has significant problems regarding Cyprus and to a certain extent Greece as well as with Armenia on various issues.
Prerequisites of being ambitious
Turkey also has neighbors like Iran, Syria and Iraq all carrying huge internal and external problems. But since the AKP government took the power in 2002, Turkey, one of the first NATO members, approached to Iran, improved its relations with Syria and its ex-neighbor Russia. It even approached to Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir (who has been labelled as a war criminal by the ICC) and Palestinian group Hamas which is seen as a terrorist organization by many major countries.
With the AKP government, Turkey's relations with its close economic and military ally, the US however, deteriorated under the Bush administration, mainly because of its rejection to give more logistic support to the US military for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ankara's relations with Washington still have the stain of those days, despite with Obama administration, many things have changed.
A G20 member, one of the largest economies in the world, Turkey enjoyed high growth rates during the last decade. It also enjoyed the benefits of a relatively stable, single party government. And during this period, ongoing fight with the Kurdish militant group PKK's rebels did not cost as much lives as it did in the past.
This political and economic climate contributed Mr Erdoğan's government a lot in changing the direction of the foreign policy so far. These internal factors as well as the military might are in fact main prerequisites for any country that is ambitious to claim influence or leadership in any region. But balances of Turkey's politics and economy are still vulnerable as it was always; a consistent internal stability seems not to be guaranteed yet. On top of it, competitors in the region are powerful and stakes are too high.
The relative stability inside helped Turkey to be able to approach only this much towards the EU membership so far. And the only tangible outcome gained by now is an 'open-ended' negotiation process in which many policy chapters are blocked by several member states. That is why maybe this week Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, said Turkey might have been "pushed by some in Europe" away from the EU and into closer partnerships with states like Iran. If this reflects the feeling in the US administration, it confirms at least the motives behind some conspiracy theories in Turkey including the one that the US prepares to oust the AKP government by supporting the opposition in the next year's general elections.
Turkey with its so called mild-Islamist government now might be closer to a possible marriage with the reluctant and protracted fiancee, the EU, than it was back in 2002. But so far many other things have changed because of a search for possibilities of some other passionate love affairs in reaction to this 'snob lover'. Maybe 'something inside' was already not that much enthusiastic for a marriage of convenience like this. That is why perhaps the steps taken by a 'more Muslim' Ankara towards other directions are seemed much more than towards the West.
However, this new Turkey's limit of the credit card might not be high enough yet, to pursue adventurous love stories, while trying to take the revenge of its broken heart.
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