Turkish foreign policy under the AK Party.

• Author: Ozcan, Mesut
• Position: COMMENTARY - Essay

ABSTRACT In its 15 years as Turkey's ruling party, the AK Party has left its imprint on foreign policy. Besides bringing its own style to bear in dealing with Turkey's long-standing issues of foreign policy, the AK Party has also diversified both the areas and the tools of Turkish foreign policy. In its early years, after dealing with the very urgent issues in Turkey's immediate vicinity, the party focused its agenda on increasing Turkey's engagement with neighboring regions. It also worked to diversify the nature of Turkey's relationships with traditional allies and started to use international aid, conflict resolution, mediation mechanisms, and Turkey's presence in international organizations as tools of foreign policy.

Introduction

Several important developments stand out in terms of Turkey's foreign policy orientation during the rule of the AK Party to date. In general terms, we can say that during the AK Party rule (2002-2017) Turkey has increasingly focused on neighboring regions along with the traditional alliance relationships. AK Party governments have aimed to increase their contacts in political, economic and cultural terms with neighboring regions, namely the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus. In tandem with the will on the side of the political authority, the economic development of the country during the last 15 years enabled the AK Party governments to pursue their projects of engagement with those regions. In that regard, beginning with neighboring countries, Turkey established High Level Strategic Dialogue mechanisms with 20 countries and signed 513 agreements, i.e. memoranda of understanding to further relations in different issue areas.

If we divide the AK Party rule of 15 years in two, we can easily say that in the first half, the European Union (EU) was an important priority and hence had an influential impact on Turkish foreign policy. This trend began right after the AK Party came to power in 2002 and continued until the blocking of some of the negotiation chapters, along with negative signals from some members countries like France and Germany about Turkey's eligibility for full membership. Turkey's 'EU vacation' accelerated during the early years of the AK Party rule and then stalled in the last couple of years.

In addition to increasing engagement with neighboring regions, one of the most important contributions of the AK Party rule in foreign policy was Turkey's increasing relations with some remote regions which were neglected before. These areas are namely Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and East Asia. Although there had been several Turkish diplomatic initiatives in these areas in the past, diplomatic representation was very limited. By increasing diplomatic relations with these regions, Turkey not only widened its horizons in foreign policy, but also aimed to benefit from economic relations with these regions. The economic benefit of these relations became more obvious in overcoming the negative impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008-2009.

In addition to widening the scope of Turkey's foreign policy, another important development during AK Party rule has been the diversification of the tools of foreign policy. New institutions under the office of the Prime Ministry contributed to different aspects of foreign policy, especially in terms of soft power. During the rule of the AK Party, Turkey increasingly used international forums and international humanitarian and developmental aid in its foreign policy. This policy is in line with the expanding scope of foreign policy, and also with the economic performance of the country in the last 15 years.

Early Years, Urgent Issues

When the AK Party came to power, there were some very urgent foreign policy issues, namely the Cyprus issue, Turkey's accession process to the EU, and the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.-led coalition forces. In the early days of AK Party rule, American policy makers were determined to topple the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq; they had already had some talks with Turkish officials about Turkey's possible role in achieving this aim. The first challenge for the new government was to manage Turkey's relationship with the U.S., its long-time NATO ally and the world's only superpower, given the questions about the legality of an Iraq invasion and the unpopularity of such a possible operation both internationally and in Turkish public opinion.

The two other urgent foreign policy issues were affecting one another. These were the Cyprus issue and Turkey's EU vacation. Turkey had been declared a candidate to the EU in 1999, and Turkey had introduced some constitutional and legal changes to start its accession negotiations with the EU. By the end of 2002, Turkey expected to have a date to start accession negotiations. One of the first priorities of the new AK Party government was to secure this date for its domestic and foreign policy...