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Turkey's foreign policy reset will not be easy

Turkey’s allies still have misgivings about the recent past and direction of Turkish foreign policy.
Protesters clash with riot police during a protest against Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government's foreign policy on Syria, in Istanbul May 16, 2013. REUTERS/Osman Orsal (TURKEY - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTXZP3Y

Turkey’s foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, was a shining star until the Arab Spring bloomed and misguided developments followed. In the course of the change that began in Tunisia and culminated in the toppling of the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt and reached the borders of Syria, everyone in the world was familiar with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s formula of "zero problems with neighbors policy." That formula was seen as illustrating the success of Turkey’s foreign policy achievements under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s premiership

With the eruption of the Syrian crisis and its transformation into a civil war and regional proxy conflict, Turkey's "zero problems with neighbors" policy was gradually replaced by a policy of "no neighbors without problems." This wasn’t actually a choice of a new policy but a total reversal of the original policy.

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