The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in foreign policy of Turkey (1969-2012)

Turkey's relationship with the Islamic World has developed in various forms and senses within the historical process, which is closely related with both the developments in the Turkish foreign policy and problems of the Islamic World. Therefore, it is aimed to give an overview of the Turkish foreign policy and discuss the transformations in Turkey's perspective towards the Islamic World in the first Chapter of this thesis. In the second Chapter, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will be studied in detail. Main problems of the Islamic World will also be discussed in this Chapter by explaining how these problems shape the perspective of Turkey towards the Islamic World. Relations of Turkey with OIC will be analysed in the final Chapter. It is seen that relations with OIC were carried out cautiously during its first years. Turkey desired to get support from the Islamic World concerning Cyprus dispute and regarded OIC as a valuable opportunity. Therefore, Turkey approached OIC from instrumental viewpoint. OIC was structured as a Conference in its early years and it acted as dialogue platform bringing the Islamic countries together, which supported this situation. However, Turkey followed a more cautious policy as this Conference gradually became more institutionalized. Unification of Islamic Countries under an institutionalized umbrella raised the concerns of Turkey about secularism. Therefore, close but cautious policies started to be followed in the relations with OIC. This relationship tends to be evident in the membership problem of Turkey to OIC. As is known, Turkey attended the activities of this organization as a de facto member for long time. Instrumental role of OIC in foreign policy of Turkey did not change by the time. However, the ways that OIC is regarded as an instrument have gradually changed as needs and targets of Turkish foreign policy have changed. Turkey gave priority to OIC in order to cooperate with Islamic countries in terms of in certain international matters such as oil crises, foreign trade requirements, security issues etc. It is also seen that OIC has faced a similar transformation in the meantime and turned into an organization giving priority to economic and cultural cooperation issues rather than political cooperation. Therefore, OIC has become an organization on which Turkey can establish its soft-power in its search for increasing its regional impact and strengthening its global power. Based on this fact, Turkey continued to regard OIC from an instrumental viewpoint in its economic and cultural relations with the Islamic countries until 2000's.