Turkey Needs to Rethink Policy Toward Its Fractious Neighbors

Turkey instituted a policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors a decade ago, an integrated foreign policy in which soft power is balanced with core security interests and which served Turkey well for a time. Current security, economic and political stakes in Syria and Iran, however, may require Ankara to change its philosophy. Kadir Ustun reports.
Shadows of Turkish soldiers are seen on a wall as they wait for the start of a ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the 70th anniversary of his death in Ankara November 10, 2008. A new film that portrays Turkey's revered founder Ataturk as a lonely, hard-drinking man beset by doubts has whipped up emotions in a country still grappling with his legacy 70 years after his death. Ataturk, a former soldier, founded modern Turkey as a secularist republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Shadows of Turkish soldiers are seen on a wall as they wait for the start of a ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the 70th anniversary of his death in Ankara November 10, 2008. - REUTERS/Umit Bektas
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Kadir Ustun
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When Turkey devised a policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors a decade ago, the decision was based on necessity, not necessarily on choice.

In the 1990s, Turkey considered virtually all its neighbors to be potential enemies who might support Kurdish militants of the PKK and its intention to carve out a separate state in Turkey’s southeast.

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