USAK Foreign Policy Capacity Report is Introduced to the Press: Capacity Expansion Issue is of Paramount Importance for Turkish Foreign Policy

Date: 19.04.2012

International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) has organized a press conference today on the report prepared by USAK expert Osman Bahadır Dinçer from USAK Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and Mustafa Kutlay from USAK Center for European Studies. Presented by USAK President, Ambassador Özdem Sanberk together with the authors of the report, the panel included a detailed analysis of the extensive report on empirical data collected in light of illustrating a realistic picture on the limits of Turkish influence and economic as well as diplomatic prospects in the Middle East.

The report is essentially focusing on Turkey’s image within the Arab populations with substantive data, and Turkish foreign affairs towards the Arab region through a perspective concerned around both official government contacts as well as unofficial transactions held between firms, by tourists and flourishing civil societies of both sides of the coin. After an elaborate and relevant slide show, highlighting the objectives and some significant data put forward by the report, authors have called the attention of the audience to policy suggestions and results to be deduced from the current state of affairs that seems optimistic but staggering if urgent policy tools aren’t handled appropriately by state organs, with Ministery of Foreign Affairs as the admiral ship expected to reform its structure in order to refresh Turkey’s prospects for deeper ties and influence in a solid manner throughout the region.

Prominent members of the Turkish press as well as distinguished academicians under the umbrella of USAK attended the conference, contributing with their analogies between the general picture drawn from the report and the current crisis and rising tension in Syria. A majority of questions were raised in accordance with the data presented to explain the evolution of and limitations around growing Turkish soft power in the region, and the probability of Turkish utilization of hard power through a lens of a concrete and neutral elaboration of whether the option of Turkish military intervention in Syria is a realistic, predictable scenario and whether such a scenario will be beneficial or destructive for growing Turkish interest and influence around the Arab-dominated geography.

Ambassador Sanberk began his introductory speech by explaining briefly the changing context and transforming challenges in front of Turkey as well as increasing opportunities for mutual relations between Turkey and the Middle East. Although refraining from lengthy descriptions of internal dynamics of Turkey which has been keeping Turkey in a distance from regional dynamics until the last decade, Sanberk put forward the obvious fact that an increasing number of news and articles about growing Turkish activism and symphaty towards Turkey within the region frequently occupy columns and halls of both Turkish and international media instruments in recent years. According to Sanberk, the USAK report aims to fill the literary gap that has been created because of the lack of empirical data and comparative analyses on the emergent issue.

Mustafa Kutlay and Osman Bahadır Dinçer have elaborated respectively on the diplomatic and economic variables in the equilibrium between growing interactions with the Middle East and transforming attitudes towards Turkey in the region. Concluding to the fact that Turkey’s growing expectations cannot be followed up by the relatively low-profile acceleration in her growing capacities, Kutlay and Dinçer suggest that Turkey needs to undertake a wholesale reform concerning the organizational diplomatic structure, by increasing general budget of and closely managing personnel education within the Foreign Ministry; and at the same time economic reforms are required in identifying trade priorities and enhancing high-tech export capabilities if Turkey is not to be ‘substituted’ by any other low to medium quality goods exporter such as China in the region in near future. In a similar fashion, to enhance Turkish capabilities of soft-power expansion, Turkish civil society as well as government authorities needs to conduct data-based researches to take the pulse of the region and to express Turkish views, prospects and culture through the media appropriately.

By Emre Tunç Sakaoğlu
USAK Journal of Turkish Weekly