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As the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) completes a decade in power, one of the most remarkable developments during its tenure has been the adoption of a new and pro-active understanding of foreign policy. The transformation of Turkish foreign policy has become a closely followed focal point, fueling important debates on the underlying reasons, resources, actors, outcomes, and nature of the policy progress. This change has also introduced new challenges to those who have adopted generic models to understand and explain Turkish foreign policy. While observers of Turkish foreign policy have often faced difficulties in following this transformation, academic circles have vigorously tried to formulate models to represent the new nature of Turkish foreign policymaking. This article will examine and discuss the main causes that have complicated the study of Turkish foreign policy during this period. Changes in the nature and conceptualization of the international system – such as the end of the unipolar world, the emergence of new power centers in international relations and domestic transformations in Turkey, including increasing democratization, the emergence of an assertive and attentive public opinion in foreign policy, and dramatic shifts in decision-making mechanisms – will be emphasized as the most significant causes of the difficulty to study Turkish foreign policy during the AK Party decade. When trying to understand the main causes of Turkish foreign policy’s transformation in the last decade, scholars have focused on different mechanisms and factors, resulting in a relatively complex literature. This complexity was the joint outcome of significant changes in different levels of international relations and existing difficulties in studying foreign policy changes, such as a lack of significant methodological and theoretical tools in this field. Although it was not stated exclusively, the first decade of the new millennium was a “long decade” in terms of its impact on the international system, as well as in terms of the developments in Turkish politics and foreign policy. For example, what was expected to be a long, unipolar international system has lasted for only a moment and the US’ dominance of the 1990s was challenged from different angles. Particularly, following the war in Iraq and the US’ economic meltdown in 2008, scholars of international relations have tried to replace the concept of “unipolarity” with alternatives. During this period, the greatest challenge for scholars was to describe, define, and analyze the foreign policy behavior of regional/ emerging/ and rising powers, like Turkey. Attempts to understand the behavior of these newly emerging centers of gravity in international relations through the lens of Cold War theories resulted in incomplete and inaccurate explanations. In addition to the changes in the international system, significant regional transformations have also taken place throughout the Middle East. Even before the AK Party gained power, the death of Hafiz Assad and King Hussein paved the way for the emergence of a young leadership in the Middle East, and in many instances, a recalibration and revision of foreign and national security policies of the region’s countries. After the electoral victory of the AK Party in November 2002, significant changes took place in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq triggered “fault lines” in all ethnic and religious seismic zones in the region, leading to a decade-long ongoing civil war in the country, and resulting in the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish entity in the North. Meanwhile, the Middle East witnessed the electoral victory of Hamas in Palestine and the failure once again of the peace process. During the AK Party decade, Turkey emerged as an influential actor in the politics and economy of the Middle East. Trade agreements with neighboring countries, increasing economic and social exchanges with the Gulf countries and diplomatic interventions by the Turkish state regarding the conflicts in the region turned Turkey into a major international player. In the last years of the AK Party decade, the people’s movements in the authoritarian states of the region generated a new dynamic that still impacts the regional political equation. The Arab Spring and its aftermath, especially the repercussions in North Africa, the conflict in Syria, and the counterrevolution in Egypt, deeply influenced Turkey’s foreign policy. Turkey’s previous regional isolationism and non-intervention policies in the conflicts of the Middle East ended during this period. In this context, Turkey launched different initiatives in the region by using new foreign policy tools, such as soft power, public diplomacy, economic diplomacy, and developmental assistance.