The Davutoglu charm offensive
Despite some new messages from Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a "reset" of Turkey’s foreign policy seems a stretch.
A tweet on Aug. 19 by Ibrahim Kalin, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser and deputy undersecretary of the prime minister’s office, was hotly debated in Turkey. In the tweet he said, "It is not accurate to say that Turkey is isolated in the Middle East. But if this [is] meant as criticism, then it must be said that it is a precious loneliness."
These words amounted to tacit admission of how, after May 2009, the duo of Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dragged Turkey into isolation in the region and in the world, by trying to radically reshape the country’s foreign policy. The remarks reflected an effort to justify that loneliness by attributing it to a compendium of values and morality.
