Continuity and change in Turkish foreign policy in the post-cold war era: Assessment in the context of Turkey's Middle East policy

The change in the foreign policies of states is remarkable among the developments emerged in international politics with the end of the Cold War. The last quarter century, especially the 20-year period after 2002, when the Ak Party has been in power, is highly debated in terms of the scope, degree and direction of the change in Turkish foreign policy, which was determined and implemented in the limitation of bipolarity and internal socio-economic factors during the Cold War. In this context, in this thesis, the question of "Whether there is a comprehensive change in Turkish foreign policy after the Cold War, and if so, what is its content and degree?" is tried to be answered with a review focusing on the Middle East. The study was based on the "Checklist Model", one of the foreign policy change models, and the data collected and the literature review findings were compared and analyzed, and conclusions were drawn. The findings of the review support the hypotheses that the continuity and change coexisted Turkish foreign policy in the post-Cold War period; that some minor adjustments between 2002-2007, program changes between 2007-2011, and target changes after 2011 were evident, and that a full axis shift/international orientation change has not occurred.