ABSTRACT
The military's decisive role on security issues during the Cold War prevented foreign policy issues to be exploited by the political parties in domestic politics. Under military's tutelage, the Turkish foreign policy was being shaped by the military's perception of national security. Nevertheless, the AKP governments have dramatically changed this tradition and interaction between domestic and foreign realms has increased since 2002. That is to say, the AKP has efficiently used foreign policy to consolidate its power and eliminate its political rivals in domestic realm, while developments in domestic politics have caused sharp U turns in foreign policy. Such pragmatism of the AKP has remained constant despite that Turkish foreign policy has experienced fluctuations and tremendous contradictions in the last two decades.
