Turkey's Qatar and UAE Policies in the period of Justice and Development Party

Since 2002, relations between Turkey and the Gulf states has been one of the main agenda of Turkish foreign policy. During the Arab Uprising, Middle East countries have different approaches to Turkey's Middle East policy. It is possible to see this difference among the Gulf countries too. In this context, it is important to consider Ankara's bilateral relations with Doha and Abu Dhabi comparatively. Thus, this thesis discusses Turkey's Qatar and the United Arab Emirates policies during the Justice and Development Party (JDP) period. The main question of the thesis is why bilateral relations between Turkey and Qatar develops at the level of strategic cooperation while between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates tension occurs. Some parameters have become significant while reviewing Turkey's policy of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. These parameters are: economy, ideology and international system. In this context, I discuss that which parameter is the main determinant in Turkey's bilateral relations with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Moreover, process tracking method is used in the thesis to analyze the causality relationship. It can be said that, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates is the most ideal case selection in which Turkey's foreign policy behavior can be observed as the two Gulf countries have similar structural characteristics. In conclusion, this thesis claims that during the period (2002-2018) of JDP, although economy and ideology are important in Turkey's foreign policy towards Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the main determinative factor comes out to be international system.