Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Arab Spring: Between Western Orientation and Regional Disorder

Abstract

Turkey's foreign policy approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been predicated on an integrationist vision through cooperation and dialogue over the past decade. The Arab Spring significantly challenged Turkey's role as a strategic interconnector and set the stage for broader debates on foreign policy orientation. This paper suggests that any fair assessment of Ankara's performance in the MENA must take into account the significant constraints imposed on Turkish foreign policy objectives by regional power rivalries and growing Western detachment from the region. The paper sheds light on the impact of global and regional powers' responses to the Arab Spring for Middle Eastern order and outlines a possible trajectory for the transformation of Turkish foreign policy to ensure effective Turkish activism in the post-Arab Spring environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^[1] See on this, ‘Turkey 2012 Progress Report’, European Commission, SWD (2012) 336, Brussels, 10 October 2012, p. 87, < http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2012/package/tr_rapport-_2012_en.pdf> (accessed 7 April 2015); ‘Turkey 2013 Progress Report’, European Commission, SWD (2013) 417, Brussels, 16 October 2013, p. 75, < http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2013/-package/tr_rapport_2013.pdf> (accessed 7 April 2015).

^[2] The 1990s were called ‘the longest decade’ to denote Turkey's national security and foreign policy challenges in the post-Cold War era. See G. Özcan and Ş. Kut (eds), En Uzun Onyıl: Türkiye'nin Ulusal Güvenlik ve Dı¸ Politika Gündeminde Doksanlı Yıllar, Boyut Kitapları, Istanbul, 1998.

^[3] S. Larrabee, ‘Turkey rediscovers the Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, 86(4), 2007.

^[4] Ahmet Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye'nin Uluslararası Konumu [Strategic Depth: The International Position of Turkey], Küre Yayınları, Istanbul, 2001.

^[5] P. Robins, ‘Turkish foreign policy since 2002: between a “post-Islamist” government and a Kemalist state’, International Affairs, 83(2), 2007, pp. 289–304.

^[6] B. Duran, ‘JDP and foreign policy as an agent of transformation’, in Hakan Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2006, pp. 281–305.

^[7] A. Davutoğlu, ‘Turkey's zero-problems policy’, Foreign Policy, 20 May 2010.

^[8] K. Kirisçi, ‘Turkey's “demonstrative effect” and the transformation of the Middle East’, Insight Turkey, 13(2), 2011, pp. 33–55.

^[9] See R. Menon and S. E. Wimbush, ‘The US and Turkey: end of an alliance?’, Survival, 49(2), 2007, pp. 129–144; M. Grufinkiel, ‘Is Turkey lost?’, Commentary, 123(3), March 2007, pp. 30–37; P. Zalewski, ‘The self-appointed superpower: Turkey goes it alone’, World Policy Journal, 27(4), Winter 2010–11, pp. 97–102.

^[10] Yücel Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity: A Constructivist Approach, Routledge, London, 2003. See also P. Bilgin, ‘Securing Turkey through Western-oriented foreign policy’, New Perspectives on Turkey, 40(2009), 2009, pp. 105–125.

^[11] Davutoğlu suggested that there was an unprecedented overlap in mutual interests. ‘Obama Yönetimiyle Dı¸ Politikamız Paralel’, Zaman, 21 March 2009.

^[12] Davutoğlu described the Arab Spring as the ‘normalization’ of history, which would enable the region to overcome the Cold War heritage of political autocracies and a psychology of enmity and distrust.

^[13] O. Schlumberger, ‘The ties that do not bind: the Union for the Mediterranean and the future of Euro-Arab relations’, Mediterranean Politics, 16(1), 2011, pp. 135–153.

^[14] Richard Gillespie, ‘Adapting to French “leadership”? Spain's role in the Union for the Mediterranean’, in F. Bicchi and R. Gillespie (eds), The Union for the Mediterranean, Routledge, London, 2012, pp. 57–76.

^[15] ‘EU response to the Arab Spring: new package of support for North Africa and Middle East’, European Commission, Brussels, 27 September 2011, < http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-11-1083_en.htm?locale = en> (accessed 5 March 2015); ‘A new response to a changing neighbourhood’, European Commission, COM (2011) 303, Brussels, 25 May 2011, < http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/com_11_303_en.pdf> (accessed 5 March 2015).

^[16] ‘So close yet so far from safety’, UNHCR, December 2014, < http://www.unhcr.org/542c07e39.html> (accessed 12 March 2015).

^[17] G. Noutcheva, ‘Institutional governance of European Neighbourhood Policy in the wake of the Arab Spring’, Journal of European Integration, 37(1), 2014, pp. 19–36.

^[18] R. Balfour, ‘EU conditionality after the Arab Spring’, IEMed Papers, 16(June), 2012, p. 26.

^[19] R. G. Whitman and A. E. Juncos, ‘The Arab Spring, the Eurozone crisis and the neighbourhood: a region in flux’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 50(Annual Review), 2012, pp. 147–161.

^[20] B. Nicoletti, ‘Crisis upon decline. Foreign policy perspectives on the EU beyond the eurozone crisis’, ISPI Analysis, 156(February), 2013, p. 2.

^[21] N. Tocci, ‘The European Union and the Arab Spring: a (missed?) opportunity to revamp the European Neighbourhood Policy’, IEMed Brief, 2(June), 2011, p. 4.

^[22] ‘Turkey 2007 Progress Report’, European Commission, SEC (207) 1436, Brussels, 6 November 2007, < http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2007/nov/turkey_progress_reports_en.pdf> (accessed 7 February 2015); ‘Turkey 2014 Progress Report’, European Commission, SWD (2014) 307, Brussels, 8 October 2014, < http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2014/20141008-turkey-progress-report_en.pdf> (accessed 7 February 2015).

^[23] A. Frykholm, ‘Obama and the Arab Spring’, Christian Century, 128(12), 2011, p. 10.

^[24] N. Hashemi, ‘The Arab Spring, US foreign policy, and the question of democracy in the Middle East’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 41(1), 2012, p. 35.

^[25] See on this, ‘Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa’, The White House, 19 May 2011, < https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa%20> (accessed 10 March 2015).

^[26] D. Huber, ‘A pragmatic actor—the US response to the Arab uprisings’, Journal of European Integration, 37(1), 2015, pp. 57–75.

^[27] Peter Jones, ‘Hope and disappointment: Iran and the Arab Spring’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 55(4), 2013, pp. 73–84.

^[28] H. Fürtig, ‘Iran and the Arab Spring: between expectations and disillusion’, GIGA Working Papers, 241(November), 2013.

^[29] B. Aras and R. Falk, ‘Authoritarian “geopolitics” of survival in the Arab Spring’, Third World Quarterly, 36(2), 2015, pp. 322–336.

^[30] B. Aras and E. Turhan, ‘The “new Iran” must still grapple with old enmities’, Europe's World, 28(Autumn), 2014, pp. 110–114.

^[31] R. Dannreuther, ‘Russia and the Arab Spring: supporting the counter-revolution’, Journal of European Integration, 37(1), 2015, pp. 77–94.

^[32] T. Schumacher and C. Nitoiu, ‘Russia's foreign policy towards North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring’, Mediterranean Politics, 20(1), 2015, pp. 97–104.

^[33] Aras and Falk, op. cit., p. 327.

^[34] N. Redman, ‘Russia's breaking point’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 56(2), 2014, p. 235.

^[35] Shlomo Brom, ‘Israel and the Arab World: the power of the people’, in A. Kurz and S. Brom (eds), Strategic Survey for Israel 2011, Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv, 2011, pp. 43–55.

^[36] B. Berti, ‘Seeking stability: Israel's approach to the Middle East and North Africa’, FRIDE Policy Brief, 198, 2015.

^[37] According to estimates, 15–25 per cent of foreign fighters involved in ISIS come from Western Europe and North America. See for details, D. Byman and J. Shapiro, ‘Be afraid. Be a little afraid: the threat of terrorism from Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq’, Brookings Policy Paper, 34, November 2014.

^[38] Alastair Crooke, ‘America immobilized as Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy war turns bloody’, Huffington Post, 6 April 2015, < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/america-iran-saudi-war_b_7001776.html> (accessed 18 April 2015).

^[39] Opposition parties criticized the JDP government's regional policy as dragging Turkey into the ‘Middle Eastern swamp’, a view shared by certain circles in the foreign policy establishment who advocate Turkish detachment. For a recent foreign policy debate along these lines, see ‘Ortadoğu'ya bataklık demek ırkçılıktır’, Vatan, 18 June 2014.

^[40] For a bilateral arrangement along these lines, see B. Aras and E. Yorulmazlar, ‘Turkey and Iran after the Arab Spring: finding a middle ground’, Middle East Policy, 21(4), 2014, pp. 112–120.

^[41] T. L. Friedman, ‘Iran and the Obama doctrine—interview with President Obama’, New York Times, 5 April 2015.

^[42] For an argument on the irreversibility of the Arab transformation, see Paul Danahar, The New Middle East: The World after the Arab Spring, Bloomsbury Press, London, 2013.

^[43] H. Mylonas and E. Yorulmazlar, ‘Regional multilateralism: the next paradigm in global affairs’, CNN, 14 January 2012.

^[44] Kiri¸ci, op. cit., p. 35.

^[45] ‘Erdoğan welcomes Iraqi president, calls ISIS a virus in Muslim world’, Daily Sabah, 22 April 2015.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emirhan Yorulmazlar

Emirhan Yorulmazlar is a Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) Fellow at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. He was a former Harvard University WCFIA Fellow during 2011–12. He obtained his PhD from Bogazici University and MSc from London School of Economics (LSE). His research interests include Turkish foreign policy, Iran, the Middle East, US foreign policy and shifting balances in international relations.

Ebru Turhan

Ebru Turhan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Sabanci University's Istanbul Policy Center (IPC). During 2013–14, Turhan served as a Mercator-IPC Fellow in the thematic area of EU/German–Turkish relations. Her current research interests include EU–Turkish relations, Turkish and European responses to the Arab Spring, Germany in Europe and German–Turkish bilateral relations. Turhan obtained her doctorate degree in Political Science from the University of Cologne. Prior to joining IPC, she worked as a Senior Expert and Project Manager at the Berlin Representation of Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSIAD).