Turkish Foreign Policy, the Arab Spring and the Syrian Crisis: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back In Işıksal, H., and Göksel, O. (eds.) (2018). Turkey’s Relations with the Middle East: Political Encounters after the Arab Spring. New York: Springer. (original) (raw)

When the “Arab Spring” struck the Middle East in 2011, the initial perceptions of Turkish foreign policy-makers were predominantly positive.AKP), appeared to support any changes that emanate from the “people level” across the region. As the party had already been victorious in three consecutive parliamentary elections, with mass popular support in its own country, supporting “people” in their struggle against authoritarian regimes was a consistent and reasonable policy at the onset of the Arab Spring.Nevertheless, when the Arab Spring began to impact Turkey via the conflict in Syria, the “Arab Spring” gradually transformed into the “Turkish Autumn.” The cost of the Syrian crisis further increased with the emergence of the so-called “Islamist State” in Iraq and Syria (hereafter ISIS) and the revival of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan—hereafter PKK) terrorist activities.These developments also highlighted the long-standing dilemmas inherent in the Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East: Turkey’s Kurdish issue and the country’s Sunni-oriented foreign policy.