On Wednesday, December 4, Hassan Laqees, a Lebanese Hezbollah leader who was reportedly involved in the group’s weapons procurement and development, was assassinated south of Beirut. On Sunday, another Hezbollah military commander was killed in Syria, bringing the number of Hezbollah dead in the Syrian conflict into the hundreds.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Washington, D.C. last week came on the heels of a year of soul searching for Turkish foreign policy. After the Arab uprisings shook Turkey’s guiding principle of “zero problems with neighbors,” the country now seems intent on resuming the leadership role it enjoyed in the pre-Arab Spring Middle East.
Turkey-Pakistan Security Relations since the 1950s
The initial impulse for Pakistan and Turkey to pursue security cooperation stemmed from their common opposition to Communism in the 1950s. Over the past decade, Pakistan and Turkey have once again sought to cooperate in the security sphere, this time in countering terrorism and ensuring stability in Afghanistan.
Earlier today, double explosions near the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed at least 23, including an Iranian diplomat. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Islamist group with links to al-Qa`ida, took responsibility for the attack. MEI sat down with its Vice President for Policy and Research, Paul Salem, to discuss the significance of the bombings in Lebanon as well as their regional and global implications.
Tell us about the bombing and the group that claimed responsibility for it.
Malaysia and Turkey lie nearly 5,000 miles and seven time zones apart. They have different historical experiences and state structures. The role that religion plays in their public life also differs markedly. Yet Malaysia and Turkey have more in common than is widely acknowledged. Both are newly industrialized, middle-income, predominantly Muslim countries and mid-sized powers in their respective regions. Both are also expected to assume a greater regional and global role in the coming years.
The Philippines and Turkey have not fully capitalized on their human resources and strategic assets in order to expand commercial ties and boost cultural exchanges. However, thanks largely to the efforts of a critical mass of Turkish nationals who have formed the backbone of a “constituency” for advancing Philippine-Turkey relations, the tide may be turning. Three recent developments indicate that the groundwork is being laid to pursue a more robust bilateral relationship: 1) the opening of Turkish-owned schools operating both in Manila and in Zamboanga City (southern Philippines); 2) the creation of the Pacific Dialogue Foundation in the Philippines; and 3) the establishment of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines.
Comparative Middle Power Diplomacies: Turkey and Japan
Middle power is an opaque term that involves multiple concepts. Through different conceptualizations of the term, Turkey and Japan are both middle powers. Indeed, widely read textbooks about Turkish foreign policy published around 2000 regard Turkey as a middle power. In the Japanese context, several scholars, including Yonosuke Nagai, Yoshikazu Sakamoto, Nobuya Banba, and Mitsuru Yamamoto, have evaluated the foreign policy of their own country as middle power diplomacy since the late 1970s. Recently, Yoshihide Soeya comprehensively summed up Japanese middle power diplomacy after the 1970s.
Turkey-Singapore Relations: A Manifestation of Turkey’s Growing Interest in SE Asia
The content and scope of Turkish foreign policy has dramatically altered since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. The Asia-Pacific region, which was previously a low priority in Turkey’s foreign policy calculations, is gaining increased space within Turkey’s general strategy and long-term planning, and is seen as vital to the growth of its small to medium sized firms, upon which the wealth of Turkey’s growing middle class is based.
Turkey and Indonesia: Historical Roots, Contemporary Business Links
Though sympathy between Turkey and Indonesia has a long tradition, in part based on their shared experience of being Muslim-majority countries that successfully executed anti-imperialist struggles, for years this sympathy has failed to translate into a closer relationship. This is now changing. New economic linkages and the relative absence of thorny political issues are bringing them closer together. As President Abdullah Gül stated during a meeting in Jakarta in 2011, “A new era is beginning with Indonesia.” Economic agents such as businessmen and entrepreneurs are the pioneers of this era.
The latest round of peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) remains the Turkish government’s best bet not just to solve the country’s 29-year old “Kurdish problem” but also to feed its energy-hungry population and wean it off costly and politically risky Russian and Iranian energy imports.
An Alternative Partner to the West? Turkey’s Growing Relations with China
The relationship between Turkey and China has rarely been a point of focus for international observers in the early twenty-first century. However, the landscape has recently undergone a dramatic change, with increasing numbers of symposiums, forums, panels, articles, columns, think tanks, and researchers focusing on Sino-Turkish relations in China or in Turkey. The change is mostly due to the impressive rise of both Turkey and China as powers on the regional and global level, respectively. Today, Turkey is the sixteenth largest economy and China the second largest. At the same time, they are more ardently looking at and listening to each other.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: A New Alternative for Turkish Foreign Policy?
In June 2012, Turkey was accepted as a “dialogue partner” at the Beijing Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Although this decision did not completely satisfy the Turkish government, which apparently preferred the status of an observer, it still had a profound meaning, as Turkey is the first NATO member state to enjoy such a privileged institutional relationship with the SCO. This new relationship has become even more significant in light of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declaration in a televised interview in January 2013 that membership in the SCO could become an alternative to Turkey’s stalled EU accession process. More recently, the brutal suppression of the Taksim Gezi Park demonstrations by Turkish security forces heightened concerns about the future of democracy in Turkey, giving rise to more frequent comparisons between the Turkish regime and the authoritarian political systems of the SCO member states.
Turkey and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Few Shared Values and No Common Destiny
Almost every written piece on Turkey’s relations with Asia begins with a reference to the ancient Silk Road. When Turkish statesmen address Chinese audiences, they often use this metaphor to point out the “millennia-old cultural exchanges and neighborly relations” between the two countries. Inside Turkey, however, few can make sense of this anachronistic notion of shared identity. Asked about ancient Sino-Turkish ties, many will only recall how the Chinese built the “Great Wall” against the nomadic tribes of Central Asia—considered to be the forefathers of modern Turks.
On September 30, 2013, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his government’s long-awaited reform or “democratization” package. In Turkey’s highly polarized political atmosphere, responses ranged from describing the package as a historical victory for democracy that will finally free Turkey from heavy chains imposed upon it for decades, to an electoral ploy designed to polish the country’s badly damaged image as a result of the Gezi Park incidents, with no substantial improvements in democratic standards. As often is the case, the truth lies in the middle.
