By Burak Bilgehan Özpek

Dr. Burak Bilgehan Özpek is assistant professor in the International Relations Department at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara. His main research interests include the politics of the Middle East and Turkish foreign policy. He has also had articles published in International Journal, Perceptions, Iran and the Caucasus and Turkish Studies.

Regional activism and engagement in the Middle East has characterised Turkish foreign policy since the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) or Justice and Development Party came to power on November 3, 2002. During the AKP’s terms in office, the increasing influence of Turkey in the Middle East has triggered a new debate centring on the question of why Turkey is so enthusiastically involved in Middle Eastern affairs.

On one hand, some argue that the AKP pursues a multi-dimensional foreign policy and successfully links its increasing influence in the Middle East to bolster its position in the West. Thus, intellectual circles supporting the AKP’s foreign policy framework highlight the importance of interconnectedness between Turkey and its Eastern neighbours. Accordingly, Turkey has left behind the geo-political alignments of the Cold War, which required it to be committed to the Western security system while neglecting other foreign policy opportunities. However, after the AKP took office, this picture changed and Turkey placed “all foreign policy areas and issues into a single picture of policy formulation.”¹ At the end of the day, the scope of Turkish foreign policy has broadened and gained momentum, especially in the Middle East.

On the other hand, critics of the AKP point to the influence of the ex-Islamist character of the party elite, demonstrated by the fact that prominent figures of the AKP were members of political Islamist parties in the past, over Turkish foreign policy. These figures left the anti-Western discourse of political Islam after February 28, 1997 when the Turkish military intervened in politics and forced the government of Prime Minister Erbakan to resign. Although Erbakan insisted on defending the political ideas of Islamism, the younger generation of his Welfare Party – including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç – founded the Justice and Development Party and became known as strong defenders of democracy, civilian control, the EU membership process and a market economy. This was a dramatic u-turn for these figures, but was not without reason: they were aware that democracy could limit the influence of the military over the political system and they aimed to ease the military out of politics, especially after the AKP took office in 2002. Critics of the AKP’s foreign policy argue that the new discourse is pragmatic because it gets rid of the pressure of the secular army, but the AKP still has Islamist roots, which influence Turkey’s policy towards the Middle East. This perspective implies that Turkey’s regional activism is the product of the AKP government’s Islamist identity rather that Turkey’s national interests.²

Whether it is the product of rational choice or Islamist identity, Turkey’s engagement and influence in the Middle East has increased considerably since 2002. Nevertheless, the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have cast a shadow over Turkey’s success story. Especially following the fall of Tunisian and Egyptian governments and the NATO operation in Libya which was mandated to protect civilians from the aggression of Gaddafi’s forces, Turkey’s long-lasting regional policy faced a serious challenge. Turkey, as a member of Western institutions such as NATO and Council of Europe, has criticised repressive governments resisting popular upheavals. However, Turkey wants to maintain its regional influence, which is based on intergovernmental relations with those of the region.

Architecture of AKP’s Foreign Policy

Following the Turkish government’s efforts to join the European Union Customs Union in 1995, a speech by Abdullah Gül summarised the foreign policy vision of the Islamist Welfare Party. He was a member of parliament and expressed his opinions on the European Union as follows:

It is apparent that Turkey will not be able to join the European Union. Most prominent politicians of Europe contend that European philosophers posit that the EU is the Union of Christians. The head of the European Commission, Delors, the British prime minister and all others say this. When the EU’s interests are concerned, Turkey is asked to give concessions, but when Turkey’s interests are concerned the EU does not give any concessions.³

This speech by Gül reflects the nature of the Welfare Party’s foreign policy, which aimed to situate Turkey further from the West and seeks closer ties with Muslim states in the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Welfare Party, often expressed his wish to see Turkey as the leader of a “Union of Muslim Countries.”⁴

The AKP, which was founded by well-known Islamist politicians, did not adopt a simplistic approach to foreign policy. First, it supported Turkey’s bid for EU membership and revised many legal codes to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. There are two possible explanations for this. On one side, there was tension between the secular army and the ex-Islamist politicians of the AKP. Thus, the AKP elite aimed to use the EU membership process, which requires the promotion of democracy and the subordination of the military to civilian authority, in order to limit the influence of the former.⁵ On the other, as an alternative explanation, the AKP views democracy as the best way of keeping stability in domestic affairs. Thus, it supported the EU accession process to avert domestic instabilities, such as the Kurdish problem, radical Islam and civil-military relations – all stemming from the absence of democracy. Regardless of which of these explanations is true, unlike the Welfare Party, the AKP certainly avoided anti-Western discourse and policies in supporting Turkey’s accession process to the EU.⁶

Secondly, the AKP left the utopian ‘Union of Muslim Countries’ policy⁷ and developed a Middle East policy to provide a more realistic course. Ahmet Davutoğlu, who has been the minister for foreign affairs since 2009 and is regarded as the architect of the AKP’s foreign policy since 2002, argues that political ideals and geographical factors have determined Turkish foreign policy since the events of September 11, 2001.

Unsurprisingly, under AKP rule, Turkey’s regional engagement in the Middle East has increased considerably. Bilateral diplomatic relations with the governments of the MENA region have flourished and the volume of trade between Turkey and the MENA has doubled.⁸ Furthermore, some scholars and pundits have interpreted the new regional activism of Turkey to be the revival of the Ottoman Empire and have labelled the AKP’s foreign policy as “Neo-Ottomanism.”⁹ Although some argue that the AKP’s regional policy is motivated by its Islamist ambitions, there is an additional dimension, which differentiates the AKP’s foreign policy from Pan-Islamism. The ‘arrow and arc’ analogy, which defines Turkey as an archer, implies that the more Turkey draws the string of the bow through the East, the farther the arrow flies West.¹⁰

The main implication of the arrow and arc analogy, which was formulated by Davutoğlu,¹¹ is the interconnectedness between Turkey’s policy towards the West and the Middle East. Turkey’s ultimate goal is to be a constant and dependable member of the Western state system.¹² Thus, Turkey’s regional activism could support its Westernisation process. In other words, Turkish foreign policy towards the Middle East serves the interests of the West because Turkey can contribute to the Western security architecture by being involved in the complexities of the Middle East. Consequently, the more Turkey contributes to what is perceived in the West as pursuing stability in the Middle East the more it may gain power in the Western states system.¹³

Turkey’s Dilemma

Turkey’s position of influence started to lose ground when unrest reached Libya and Gaddafi’s forces resisted the rebel groups. Gaddafi’s aggression against civilians and the potential for major casualties as Libyan government forces moved on Benghazi prompted the United Nations Security Council to pass Resolution 1973 on March 17, 2011, authorising countries to take necessary measures to stop the violence against civilians. As we have seen, this resolution paved the way for NATO intervention in Libya. Discrepancies between Turkey and its NATO partners then began to appear.

As a NATO member, Turkey joined the operation, but Prime Minister Erdoğan did veer away from the emphasis on democratisation while withholding his criticism of the NATO operation. He argued that it should aim to end the violence, not redistribute the natural resources and wealth of Libya.¹⁴ NATO’s military operation and the reaction of the Turkish Prime Minister indicate that Turkey’s policy towards the region could produce discord with the West – as well as cooperation. There appears to be several reasons why Turkey remained tentative and reluctant to support the democratisation process in Libya.

First, the Libyan crisis showed that Turkey’s regional activism owes its success to intergovernmental relations with the authoritarian regimes of the region. State-to-state relations dominate Turkey’s Middle East policy, creating increasing economic relations that are subject to the mercy of authoritarian governments. For example, Turkish firms are involved in projects in Libya worth over US$15 billion and the continuation of such economic relations depends on stability in the region.¹⁵ Consequently, in the initial days of the operation, Turkey faced a dilemma between supporting Gaddafi to protect its economic benefits and the democratisation of the country.

Second, repressive governments characterise the region and the latest rebellions show that similar uprisings threaten other autocracies. Furthermore, as the Libyan case showed, revolts could trigger civil wars and revolutionaries do not always succeed as they did in Tunisia and Egypt. Therefore, a revolutionary wave that spreads throughout the Middle East might strain the relationships between Turkey, which is expected to support democratisation, and authoritarian regimes.

Third, the crisis in Libya reminded Turkey that the Middle East is “an exceptional magnet for external intervention.”¹⁶ Both after September 11 and during the Tunisia and Egypt revolutions, Turkey was regarded as a model of democracy and Islam coexistence. Thus, the United States and the European Union expected Turkey to spread its experience of democracy among its neighbours. For this reason, they highlighted Turkey’s role as a model country and encouraged Ankara to become involved in the region’s political complexities. However, during the Libyan crisis, Turkey was reluctant to get involved in the NATO operation because any military involvement might undermine Turkey’s regional activism based on shared identities, intergovernmental dialogue and interdependence. Furthermore, Western involvement in the region is known to inflame anti-Western feelings.¹⁷

Fourth, Turkey’s foreign policy during AKP rule experienced serious tensions with Israel due to Erdoğan’s harsh criticism of Israel’s Gaza operation at the Davos Summit in 2009 and the Gaza flotilla in May 2010. This tension had two repercussions. First, relations between Turkey and Israel have dramatically deteriorated. Second, Turkey, especially Erdoğan, has gained the respect of both the Arab street and governments, which have longstanding problems with Israel. However, the Arab Spring indicated that Turkey and Israel may have to cooperate in order to overcome potential problems stemming from the regional turmoil, particularly Syria.

The Arab Spring also produced consequences for Turkey’s domestic politics. When the revolutions began, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition group, the Republican People’s Party, criticised Erdoğan’s silence on the violence in Libya. He posited that: “We believe that Libyans need democracy, human rights and equality. Our hearts are with democrats and libertarians. We support them. We are together with them.”¹⁸ Furthermore, Kılıçdaroğlu urged Erdoğan to return the Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights that he received from the Libyan leader in Istanbul on November 30, 2010. Erdoğan kept his silence and sought to follow a balanced policy. Unlike the Tunisian and Egyptian cases, Turkey concentrated on the evacuation of Turkish citizens from Libya rather than criticising the Gaddafi government and supporting those democratic movements.

Another domestic challenge came from conservative voters, who predominantly support the AKP. Although representatives of Islamist non-governmental organisations criticised Gaddafi’s repressive administration, they are still opposed to NATO’s military operations. What strengthened the reaction from conservative circles was French Interior Minister Claude Gueant’s choice of words when describing the NATO operation as a “crusade.”¹⁹ Furthermore, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also condemned the NATO attacks and the UN resolution as a “call for medieval crusade.”²⁰

The call for civil disobedience from leading Kurdish political circles is also a serious domestic difficulty that the AKP must face. The head of the Congress of Democratic Society, Ahmet Turk, contended “We will ask for freedom with a higher voice than the ones in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.”²¹ The call from Kurdish politicians shows that the Kurdish problem which prevents Turkey from acting cohesively in its foreign policy. In other words, Turkey’s efforts, even military involvement, to support democracy in the region, triggers questions from Turkey’s Kurds.

Finally, AKP governments have introduced many reforms in order to direct Turkey towards EU membership. These reforms and the AKP’s policies impeded the Turkish military’s influence over civilian governments. In so doing, public prosecutors opened the ‘Ergenekon’ and ‘Balyoz’ cases, indicting retired and active soldiers, university professors, businesspersons and journalists for preparing a coup d’etat against the AKP government. However, the detention of journalists exploring the influence of Islamic communities in the government and the seizure of these journalists’ book drafts by police in March 2011 have aroused the suspicion of domestic intellectual circles, the European Union and the United States regarding the level of democracy in Turkey.²² Therefore, it is unclear to what extent Turkey can be a model for the MENA countries in terms of democratisation when its own democracy has fundamental flaws, in areas including freedom of the press and expression.

Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, urged Gaddafi to quit and leave the country on May 3, 2011, approximately three months after protests began in Libya. This delayed reaction indicates the AKP government’s limitations in the region. It should be noted that Gaddafi is the third leader after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak that Turkey has called on to resign. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Arab Spring’ has reached Turkey’s neighbour Syria and threatened the Assad government, which is a key player in Davutoğlu’s Middle East policy. At this point, the question is, what will Turkey do if Syria faces similar pressure from the international community as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have just experienced.

In light of recent developments, it would not be wrong to suggest that Turkey’s regional activism would be slighted as a result of Ankara’s role in the Arab Spring. Although Turkey’s democratic tradition as a Muslim country supports its ‘model role’ after the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the resistance displayed by Gaddafi and Assad, and the NATO operation in Libya complicate Turkey’s recent foreign policy formulations. According to Davutoğlu, Turkey’s regional activism was supposed to bolster Turkey’s ties with the West. Nevertheless, the Arab Spring and the latest Libyan crises show that Turkey’s Middle East and North Africa policy has lost ground. For example, when the effects of the Arab Spring reached Syria, Turkey’s bridge-like position between Syria and Western countries collapsed. Upon Turkey’s call for constitutional democracy, Syrian Presidential Advisor Bouthaina Shaaban said “If Davutoğlu is to deliver a decisive message to Syria, he will hear  more decisive reply regarding the Turkish stance which failed to condemn the brutal killing and crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups against the civilians, military and police members until now.”²³ This tension undermined Turkey’s Syria policy, which aimed to achieve political and economic integration.²⁴Thus, the Arab Spring and its international influence weakened Turkey’s regional ambitions. Moreover, since foreign policy issues shape domestic politics in Turkey, the complexities and failures of regional activism might soon drive Turkey to revise its foreign policy.