ABSTRACT
Turkey’s relationships with its Mediterranean neighbours are complicated and sometimes marginalised by its relationships with a host of other regions, alliances and cultural affiliations, such as the Black Sea, the Middle East, Eurasia, the Islamic world, and NATO and the EU. This chapter will trace how the demise of the cold war, the emergence of the Justice and Development Party and the foreign and domestic policies it has pursued, Turkey’s status as an emerging economy, its energy dependence, and the social and political turmoil in the MENA region, have added to these complications, and introduced flux and unpredictability in Turkey’s behaviour and to its relationships. Ankara struggles to reconcile its western diplomatic alignments with its Islamic identity, its stakes in the MENA region, or its energy dependency. However, it has also been unable to identify a settled pattern of regional diplomatic and political positions, which has let to political, economic, territorial and ideological tensions with a range of regional players. As a consequence Turkey remains somewhat isolated in the region and beyond, and regarded as not fully European, Middle Eastern, or Eurasian by its neighbours and partners.
