Shifting Sides? The problems of neo-Ottomanism

Michael Rubin discusses Turkey's AKP Islamist party's agenda:

Perhaps we have more in common with our neighbors than we do with the United States," a labor-union leader told me as we smoked a water pipe in a Kasyeri café. Across Turkey, many intellectuals and journalists express the same sentiment.

There has been a profound shift in Turkish foreign policy. The ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi [AKP] has sought to reorient Turkish policy away from the United States, toward both Europe and the Islamic world. Turkey's press, much of which makes the BBC look levelheaded and unbiased, happily cooperated. The first victim of Turkey's shifting diplomacy has been Israel. The late President Turgat Özal forged a strategic partnership with Israel. The Turkish-Israeli relationship was based on both the common threat posed by Iranian and Syrian-sponsored terrorism, as well as shared democratic ideals. ...

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Posted by Andrew Jaffee at August 12, 2004 08:10 AM