Türkiye has continued where it left off after the last presidential and parliamentarian elections. The Turkish political leadership has been continuously struggling to increase its strategic autonomy in international politics and to build different axes of stability in regions, reflecting its multilateral foreign policy understanding. When looking at the most recent visit to Ankara and Turkish visits to other countries, we can see that Türkiye will continue to invest in regionalism and minilateralism in the near future.
Today, I will try to underline this dimension of Turkish foreign policy mainly by focusing on the foreign visits made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s speech that he delivered during the 14th Ambassadors Conference in Ankara.
Erdoğan’s foreign visit indicates this multilateral and regionalist foreign policy orientation. He conducted his first foreign visit to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Azerbaijan as traditionally any Turkish president has done after every election. Then he attended the NATO summit in Vilnius, where he met with different leaders of NATO member countries. One month later, he made a three-day trip to the Gulf.
During his tour, President Erdoğan visited the most active players in regional politics, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And last week, he paid an official visit to Hungary, where he met with several leaders of friendly countries and the officials of the host state.
Similarly, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan‘s visits and political discourse show regionalism and minilateralism in Turkish foreign policy. When looking at the foreign policy vision of Fidan, we see that a region-oriented perspective dominates his foreign policy understanding.
After emphasizing the independence of Turkish foreign policy “from all spheres of influence,” Minister Fidan pointed out that Türkiye attempts to become “the center of attraction in its region.” Fidan then underlined the leadership of Erdoğan and the vision of the “Century of Türkiye” set by him. In addition, he highlighted that Türkiye aims to strengthen “its position as an active and influential actor that sets the international agenda, sets up games when necessary, and breaks games when necessary.”
It is clear to everybody that Fidan had been closely following regional issues such as the Syrian and Libyan crises during his tenure in the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). It is natural to expect that he will continue to focus on these regional issues after becoming minister of foreign affairs. During his address to the ambassadors, he explained “establishing peace and security in the region” as one of the four basic strategic objectives of Ankara.
Providing regional peace and security
There are several cases in which Türkiye has played a determinant role to provide peace and security in its region. First of all, for Fidan, Türkiye wants to improve its relations with all regional countries. Ankara aims to end the prolonged conflict in Syria with a political process, to protect Iraq’s territorial integrity and political stability, and to rid Iraq of terrorist organizations.
Second, Türkiye is determined to fight against international terrorism to achieve its targets in the region. Türkiye, as a country suffering from terrorist organizations the most, has been calling on all related countries to fight against terrorist organizations.
Third, Türkiye, the only relevant country that has a constructive dialogue with the two conflicting sides, has been struggling to end the Ukrainian-Russian War. For this reason, Türkiye wants to prevent the spread of the war to other countries and increase the detrimental impacts of the war on other nations. Therefore, Türkiye has been trying to revive the grain deal to prevent the global food crisis.
Another example of establishing regional peace is the Turkish constructive efforts in the South Caucasus. After the liberalization of Azerbaijani territories from the Armenian occupation, Türkiye has invited Armenia and other regional states to form a regional stability axis in the South Caucasus. Similarly, Türkiye has been supporting stability in the Libyan crisis. Ankara is the only real power that supports the legitimate government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), in Tripoli, Libya. If it was not the Turkish support, different conflicting local actors would cause further chaos. Türkiye expects to find a lasting solution to the Libyan crisis by holding elections.
Also, Türkiye has contributed to regional stability in the Gulf by preventing the change of government in Qatar against the blockade of other regional countries. It has provided not only military and economic assistance but also political and diplomatic support to the alienated Qatari government. Eventually, Qatar has maintained its different perspective of the region. Ankara recently normalized its relations with all Gulf countries and has signed dozens of bilateral agreements to further improve its relations with the Gulf.
Fidan has pointed out that Türkiye is determined to improve its relations with the European Union. He has claimed that an EU without Türkiye cannot become a global actor. According to him, the EU has to abandon its strategic blindness and see Türkiye and has to revive the full membership process with Ankara.
Fidan has underlined Türkiye’s leading role in the transformation of the pan-Turkic international organization. Recently, Türkiye has begun to invest hugely in the Organization of the Turkic States. For Türkiye, the organization represents an example of the institutionalization of Turkish foreign policy. Türkiye has been trying to improve its military, diplomatic political, and economic relations with the rest of the Turkic world.
