Turkish foreign policy in the AK Party period: The example of Turkish-American relations

This study investigates if the tensions between Turkey and USA as two allied countries over such issues as March 1 tension, embargoes on weapons, the Halkbank situation, the Brunson situation, the S-400 missiles, the F-35 fighter planes and Syria can be reduced to a more manageable level. The objective of the current study is to analyze the cause and effect relationship on these tensions brought about by the differing interests and concerns over national security that result from the global developments between Turkey and the USA between the years 2002-2020 in particular and then to investigate how these tensions can be managed in doing foreign policy based on the Turkish-USA relations. Under this framework, the study is based on the explanatory/descriptive case study as one of the strategies of the qualitative research designs. The data were collected through interviews and document analysis. The findings indicate that the Jewish lobbying has played a significant part on the USA adopting a negative approch towards Turkey during the tensions between the two countries in the post-2002 period and that the most challenging issues that need to be negotiated and managed between the two countries are the S-400 missiles and Syria. Keywords: Turkey-USA Relations, Tensions, Analysis of foreign policy, Congress, Jewish Lobbies.