Turkey's Regional Role: Harder Choices Ahead, Summer 2008

Friday, September 5, 2008 | Download PDF in English

The circumstances of the last decade have encouraged a much more active and imaginative Turkish debate about international politics and strategy. Observers of the Turkish scene are right to identify the rise of a new look in Turkish foreign policy under AKP, with many positive and some negative results. Without question, Turkey’s international policy is now more diverse, both functionally and geographically. In the years ahead, Turkey may have fewer resources and fewer reasons to pursue a diffuse policy of engagement across multiple regions, some integral and some marginal to Turkish interests. The last decade has encouraged a policy in width; the next is likely to require a policy in depth, with more deliberate choices and more explicit priorities.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Ian O. Lesser

Dr. Ian O. Lesser is the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center, the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), and GMF’s Senior Director for Foreign Policy.

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