From power politics to personality

Since it first came to power in November 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has sought to establish Turkey as a regional power by actively trying to resolve disputes between Israel and the Arabs. It has frequently argued that Turkey's good relations with both sides mean that it is uniquely positioned to broker a permanent peace agreement in the Middle East.

However, ever since Israel launched its devastating three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008, the AKP has aligned itself unequivocally with Hamas. Indeed, at the height of the fighting, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was Hamas' most outspoken international advocate. He not only denounced Israel itself but also lambasted Hamas' bitter domestic rival, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and Turkey's EU and NATO allies, who have refused to engage in dialogue with Hamas on the grounds that it is classed as a terrorist organization.

In addition to severely damaging Turkey's relationship with Israel, Erdogan's repeated championing of Hamas has meant that, for the first time, a Turkish government has taken sides in an internal dispute inside an Arab country. Perhaps most remarkably for a country frequently touted as moderate, pro-western and secular, the AKP has opted to support one of the most anti-western, hard-line Islamist organizations in the region.

The repercussions of this dramatic shift in Turkish policy were graphically illustrated during a recent visit to Turkey by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to seek support for Cairo's efforts to broker a permanent truce between Israel and the Palestinians. But Mubarak's public statements served as a reminder that it is not only Israel that has been made uneasy by the AKP's support for Hamas.

The Egyptian government has little affection for Hamas, which is closely affiliated with the most powerful Islamist organization in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood - a group officially outlawed since 1954. In a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul on 11 February 2009, Mubarak pointedly referred to the PLO as the sole legal representative of the Palestinian people. In contrast, Gul's statement focused on what he described as Turkey's willingness to contribute to reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO.

Yet, despite its consequences, the AKP's change in policy does not appear to have been the result of a carefully calculated strategy. On the contrary, it seems to have been primarily the product of Erdogan's volatile personality.

Strategic depth and Ottoman nostalgia

Throughout most of the 20th century, Turkey's foreign policy had been based on strengthening its relations with the West. The Middle East had been largely ignored except when it directly impinged on domestic affairs; such as during the oil price shock of 1974 or the use by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of bases in Syria and Iraq as platforms for attacks inside Turkey.

However, in 1996, Turkey signed military training and defense industry cooperation agreements with Israel. The impetus for the agreements came from the rigorously secularist Turkish General Staff (TGS), which has traditionally been disdainful and suspicious of the role that Islam plays in public life in most Arab states.

The TGS was also attracted by the opportunity to establish closer links with the strongest military power in the region and secure access to its sophisticated defense technology. Over the years that followed, Turkish and Israeli personnel regularly underwent training in each other's countries and Israeli firms were awarded a string of lucrative defense contracts.

After the AKP took office in November 2002, Erdogan appointed Ahmet Davutoglu, a professor of international relations, as his chief foreign policy adviser.

The AKP had grown out of Turkey's Islamist movement, which has always included a very strong element of Ottoman nostalgia; albeit more for the kudos that the Ottomans had enjoyed as the leaders of the Muslim world than a desire to control territory.

In 2001, Davutoglu published a book called Stratejik Derinlik or "Strategic Depth," in which he argued that Turkey's excessive emphasis on closer ties with the West had created an imbalance in its foreign policy. He suggested that the discrepancy could be redressed through building on what he euphemistically described as Turkey's close cultural and historical ties with the countries of the Middle East, which in reality meant Islam and its Ottoman heritage.

During its first years in office, the AKP oversaw a rapid rise in official visits to and from the Muslim states of the Middle East. Closer political ties were underpinned by a substantial increase in bilateral trade. Even though Turkey's ties with Israel were occasionally strained, the tensions tended to be relatively short-lived; not least because the mainstay of the relationship, namely the bond between the two countries' militaries, was untouched by the AKP's policy of increased engagement with Muslim countries.

As a result, Turkey really did appear to be uniquely placed to act as an intermediary between Israel and the Arabs; which in turn promised to enable the AKP to realize its ambitions of establishing Turkey as an acknowledged regional power in the Middle East.

The first indication that Turkey's new role had the potential to produce concrete results came in May 2008 when it emerged that the AKP had initiated discreet indirect peace negotiations between Israel and Syria in February 2007. As the negotiations continued through the rest of 2008, there were genuine hopes that they could lay the foundation for a permanent peace.

Turkey also facilitated a number of other, less high-profile, contacts. For example, in late August 2008, Arab and Israeli scientists and health officials, including Palestinians, met in a hotel in Istanbul to discuss how to coordinate their responses in the event of an outbreak of a highly contagious disease, such as avian flu, close to their shared borders.

Pique and prejudice

On 22 December 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Erdogan in Ankara to discuss the ongoing indirect peace negotiations with Syria. Olmert's visit went so well that Turkish officials were confident that Israel and Syria would soon be ready to hold direct talks. Privately, Turkish officials also insist that Olmert gave them the impression that military action against Gaza was not imminent.

As a result, when Israel launched air strikes into Gaza on 27 December 2008, Erdogan's outrage at the civilian casualties was exacerbated not only by feelings of Islamic solidarity with the Palestinians but also by a sense of personal betrayal. In his first public reaction to the Israeli military offensive, Erdogan accused Israel both of targeting innocent Palestinians and of abusing Turkey's trust. "They have insulted us," he declared.

Over the weeks that followed, Erdogan's anti-Israeli rhetoric intensified and the AKP launched fund-raising campaigns to provide aid to beleaguered Palestinian civilians. Erdogan's outspoken support for Hamas culminated in him launching an extraordinary attack on Israeli President Shimon Peres during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on 29 January. "You know very well how to kill people," he shouted at Peres, and then stormed out of the room after the panel moderator tried to cut short his tirade.

Erdogan returned to Turkey to a hero's welcome, proudly declaring that his outburst had been triggered by "a humanitarian conscience." He was accused by opposition parties of exploiting the Gaza conflict for domestic political purposes in the run-up to nationwide local elections on 29 March. However, there appears no reason to doubt the genuineness of Erdogan's outrage at Israel; even if both his "humanitarian conscience" and his logic appear to have been somewhat selective.

On 4 February, Erdogan held discussions in Ankara with Sudanese Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha on strengthening Turkey's ties with Sudan. No mention was made of Taha's alleged close links with the militias responsible for the atrocities in Darfur.

Similarly, despite his insistence that the West should engage with Hamas, Erdogan continues to refuse to meet with members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which won 22 seats in the last Turkish general election, until it condemns the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Unlike Erdogan, the TGS was originally careful to avoid any public condemnation of Israel. The military campaign in Gaza was launched soon after Turkey took delivery of the first two of 10 Israeli Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are expected to make a significant contribution to intelligence-gathering operations against the PKK.

However, earlier this month, Erdogan's attacks on Israel resulted in even the military relationship between the two countries coming under strain. On 13 February, Major General Avi Mizrahi, the commander of the GOC Army Headquarters in Israel, responded to Erdogan's attack on Peres at Davos by suggesting that the Turkish prime minister should "look in the mirror" and alluded to the Armenian genocide.

The following day, the TGS issued a furious statement condemning Mizrahi's remarks as totally unacceptable. Later that same day, in a very unusual move, the Israeli military publicly distanced itself from what it described as Mizrahi's expression of a personal opinion.

Personality politics

The alacrity with which the Israeli military sought to placate the TGS demonstrated the importance it continues to attach to good relations with Turkey; and suggests that the military-to-military relationship will survive. But the damage to Israeli perceptions of Erdogan and the AKP is likely to take considerably longer to repair.

Syria withdrew from the indirect negotiations with Israel as soon as the Gaza offensive began. Such is the current lack of trust between the AKP and Israel that it is difficult to see how Turkey could oversee the process if it is ever revived.

Although most Arab leaders would doubtless endorse Erdogan's condemnation of Israel, many will have been considerably less enthusiastic about his outspoken support for Hamas against the PLO; not least because there is little desire for outsiders to play an active role in what is regarded as an internal Arab matter.

Perhaps the most startling outcome of the AKP's reaction to the war in Gaza has been that it demonstrated how vulnerable years of careful diplomacy can be to Erdogan's volatile personality, which has now effectively become one of the main determinants of Turkish foreign policy.