Turkey’s Middle East Policy under the JDP Rule

Authors : Nuri YEŞİLYURT, Atay AKDEVELİOĞLU

Pages : 39-69

Doi:10.1501/Intrel_0000000225

View : 15 | Download : 19

Publication Date : 2009-05-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article tries to shed light on the root causes of Turkey’s activism in the Middle East during the rule of the Justice and Development Party JDP . By focusing on Turkey’s relations with Syria, Iraq, Iran and Israel along with the US foreign policy towards the region, it argues that the transformation of the US Middle East policy is a very important factor that affected Turkey’s Middle East policy in the JDP era. Besides, it asserts that recent debates regarding “Turkey’s soft power” in the region remind of “Turkey as a model country” discourse since both of them conceives Turkey as a facilitator in the articulation of the Middle East to the global system
Keywords : Turkish Foreign Policy, Justice and Development Party JDP, Middle East, Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative BMENAI, Soft Power