Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was believed to have charmed his international audience while he served as the foreign minister under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership from 2009 to 2014. His image was that of an impressive academic with original ideas on international affairs to which he introduced insightful analyses. But Davutoglu, since the time he was handpicked by Erdogan to occupy the post Erdogan would vacate to climb up to the presidency, has increasingly become the object of criticism, sometimes harshly personal, even contesting his intellectual credentials.
It was not long ago that he was depicted as being no more than a Turkish notable of the Arab Muslim Brotherhood network. “Zero Problems with Neighbors,” the phrase he coined to symbolize Turkey’s allegedly successful re-entry into the Middle East policy arena, is now no more than a distant reference, as Turkey’s regional posture nowadays is in shambles.