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28 | Center or Strategic and International Studies

Te End o Zeo Poblems?ukey and Shifing Regional Dynamics

Bulent Aliriza and Stephen Flanagan

urkey’s ambitious oreign policy aimed at zero

problems with its neighbors is under threat. Te

escalating crisis in Syria and related regional

turbulence are complicating urkey’s important

relationships with both Iran and Russia. Tis

turmoil could strain the U.S.-urkey alliance while

presenting the next American administration

with a new set o complex dynamics in the MiddleEast and Eurasia.

By choosing to visit urkey three months into his

presidency, Barack Obama underscored urkey’s

importance to the United States. He reafrmed the

 value o the strategic partnership ormed during

the Cold War and proposed to expand it through

cooperation in orging a new relationship with

the Middle East and wider Islamic world.

Obama and urkish prime minister Recep ayyip

Erdoğan coordinated closely as the Arab Spring

unolded. Tey agreed on the value o the “urkish

Model” as Islamists previously shut out o the

political system sought power through elections,

and they watched as events in North Arica seemed

to vindicate this approach. Te conict in Syria,

however, now poses a undamental challenge.

Rapprochement with Syria aer decades o 

mutual hostility was the showcase o urkey’s zero

problems policy. Tis is now history given Bashar

al-Assad’s reusal to consider a peaceul transer

o power. Iran and Russia are openly helping to

sustain the Syrian dictator. Tis has presented

urkey with a complicated diplomatic equation

given its overall oreign policy ramework.

Even beore the Syrian crisis, Ankara had

difculties maintaining a balance between the

increasing Western pressure on Iran over its

nuclear program and urkey’s zero problems

policy. urkey has maintained a close trade

relationship with Iran parallel to its compliance

with UN sanctions, as evidenced by the act

that 51 percent o its oil imports last year camerom its eastern neighbor. urkey views Iranian

acquisition o nuclear weapons as inimical to its

security but does not assess the nuclear program

as an imminent threat. It also remains adamant

that economic and diplomatic engagement

oer the best route to convince the Iranian

government to orswear that quest.

urkey voted against UN Security Council

sanctions on Iran in 2010 despite U.S. pressure,but in late 2011 accepted deployment o a U.S.

ballistic missile early warning radar on its

territory, justiying the move as a purely deensive

measure consistent with NAO obligations and

longstanding missile deense plans. Iran saw it

dierently, threatening to make the urkish site

a primary target i Iran is attacked by NAO.

Nevertheless, i the United States joined in or

completed Israeli military strikes against Iran’s

nuclear acilities, the ensuing regional turmoil

and domestic outrage would surely orce

Erdoğan to review urkey’s alignment with U.S.

Middle East policy.

At the same time, Ankara has been appalled by 

ehran’s omenting o Sunni-Shi’a tensions in

Iraq and Bahrain while it supports Assad’s bloody 

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Global Forecast 2012  |  29 

campaign. I Assad manages to survive politically with Iranian help, Ankara might nd itsel 

conronting a Shi’a axis extending rom ehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Hezbollah

in Beirut determined to curb the exercise o urkish inuence in the Middle East.

An increasing divergence o perspectives and

agendas on Syria is also threatening to undermine

urkey-Russia relations, in spite o the overall

positive trend in the relationship exemplied by 

Russia supplying 55 percent o urkey’s gas in 2011.

Cooperation with Moscow allows Ankara to claim

enhanced inuence in Eurasia as part o its growing

international clout. For its part, Moscow has sought

to leverage its ties to encourage Ankara to pursue a more independent stance in international

politics, periodically challenging U.S. and European policies. Te measured urkish response

to the August 2008 conict in Georgia was a visible maniestation o urkey balancing relations

between its Western allies and Russia.

Despite the close personal relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Erdoğan has

publicly decried Moscow’s support or Assad and continuing arms supplies. While Erdoğan

has been embracing and supporting political change in the Middle East in line with Obama,

Putin has essentially avored the status quo seeking to retain traditional clients, earing that

the growth o democratic and Islamist groups in that region could inspire the development o 

similar movements in Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

While Erdoğan will make every eort to prevent a deterioration o relations with Iran and

Russia, it is clear that there is real danger or the rst time in a decade o a undamental split

because o Syria. It remains to be seen whether the strong urkish economic links with the

two countries will be sufcient to help immunize the relationships rom the corrosive eects

o the Syrian bloodbath. At a wider level, the next U.S. administration will have to consider

the implications or the U.S.-urkey relationship o the shiing dynamics in the urkey-Iran-

Russia triangle as it contends with all the other changes in the Middle East and Eurasia.

I Assad manages to survie

politically with Iranian help, Ankara 

might nd itsel cononting a Shi’a 

axis deteminded to cub ukish

inuence in the Middle East.

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