Turkish foreign policy is heading to a crossroads

The ruling Justice and Development Party?s (AK Parti) ?zero problems with neighbors? policy was nothing but a derivative of the Turkish Republic?s strategic position formulated by its founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as ?peace at home, peace in the world.?

When it was first explained to the Turkish public and the outside world by then Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül in 2003, it sounded good. Turkey was tired of controversies with its neighbors. It did not have embassies in two of its neighbors - neither in Greek Nicosia because Ankara does not recognize its presence as representing the Turks on Cyprus, nor in Yerevan because it has not established diplomatic links due to the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territories. The emergence of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq in 2005 was another problem, as the military headquarters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK) is located there.

The pragmatism of the Turkish Foreign Ministry at the time could have been in parallel with the ?Strategic Depth? thesis of Ahmet Davuto?lu, who was serving as the chief foreign policy advisor to then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an. That policy reached to its peak in 2008-2009, after Gül was elected president in 2007 and the cabinet?s economy chief Ali Babacan, who was already a well-known figure in the West, took the Foreign Ministry post.

By 2008, the Turkish government was proud that there was not a single government or political group that it was not in contact with, and it was involved in normalization efforts with the Greek Cypriot and Armenian governments. The Turkish Foreign Ministry was also mediating between Israel and Syria, it was facilitating the nuclear talks between Iran and the U.N.?s 5+1, it was best friends with the Egyptian...