Turkey’s foreign policy since the end of the cold war has been marked by a significant reorientation from a long-entrenched passive and isolationist stance to one of active engagement particularly in the affairs of the Middle East. This dramatic change in foreign policy outlook has become more pronounced since the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) came to power in 2002. Observers have increasingly noted that Turkey’s previously uncontested Western-oriented identity and foreign policy has come under attack from Islamist forces. Thus, because of its Islamist roots, the AKP government’s active involvement in the Middle East has often been mistaken for signalling a shift in Turkey’s state identity. 1 However, an identity-based explanation for Turkey’s new foreign policy activism in the Middle East is seriously lacking for a number of reasons.

First, the main focus of Turkish foreign policy continues to be on European Union (EU) membership, and there has been no departure from the commitment to the EU membership as a seal of approval of Turkey’s Western identity. Although AKP’s initial activism in this process has stalled, this is largely due to the rising ambivalence, if not outright hostility, of a number of EU countries towards Turkey’s membership, and the concomitant disenchantment of a large segment of Turkey’s population with the EU. Turkey’s relations with the USA experienced a major setback in the early years of the Iraq war due to Turkey’s refusal to allow American troops to enter northern Iraq via its territory. However, the two sides have repaired relations, which seemed to reach a new high with President Obama’s visit in April 2009. Thus it is not plausible to argue that the traditional emphasis of Turkish foreign policy on relations with the EU and the USA has been abandoned. Second, Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East does not contradict the expectations and actions necessary for EU membership. On the contrary, Turkey’s actions in the region are guided by a normative and multilateral approach that is very much characteristic of EU foreign policy. Turkey is currently engaging with the Middle East much like a European state, 2 demonstrating its successful socialization into European norms and guidelines, at least in foreign policy.