Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 07/2009

Looking for a New Strategic Identity: Is Turkey Emerging as an Independent Regional Power?

Hanna Ojanen, Igor Torbakov

May 2009

Finnish Institute for International Affairs

Abstract

Turkey is a country that appears destined to provoke debate. Ankara’s recent foreign policy activism is a case in point. For quite some time, the Turkish top leadership has been tirelessly criss-crossing the globe – from Algeria to Saudi Arabia and from Russia to Azerbaijan. Everywhere they go, the Turks tend to air new diplomatic initiatives, offer mediation, advance blueprints for new regional security regimes and, last but not least, seek to boost trade ties.