Turkey is the country to have most directly experienced the effects of the Syrian civil war, which allows terrorist organizations such as the PKK and ISIS to further expand their terrorist attacks within the country
Criticisms and debates on Turkish foreign policy are embroiled in domestic polemics while regional and global variables are ignored.
BBC covered the story as a "landmark visit to Armenia." CNN called it "football diplomacy." French President Nicolas Sarkozy applauded the visit as "courageous and historic."
Speaking to Milliyet columnist Fikret Bila, Prime Minister Erdoğan stated that Turkey is being forced to take sides in the Georgian conflict.
Writing forty years ago in the "Journal of Contemporary History" Andrew Mango, the prominent British historian of modern Turkey, noted Turkey's potential new role in the Middle East as a "middle-power." He observed that "Turkey is socially and technologically the most advanced country of the Muslim Middle East.