Since the ascendancy of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, Turkey has critically reappraised its foreign-policy priorities. Led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish political establishment has reset its conventional pattern of foreign-policy behavior by distancing the country from the West in favor of better connections to other regions. Turkey has not abandoned its long-cherished aspiration of European Union (EU) membership, but its top leadership has demonstrated that the Turks are no longer willing to pay any demeaning cost in order to achieve that erstwhile goal. Moreover, Turkish leaders have sometimes even gone out of their way to criticize certain Western politico-economic as well as cultural policies, no matter that their country is still an active member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Meanwhile, the cooler Turkey has been toward the West, the more it has manifested a desire to foster closer ties with the East. These proclivities under the AKP have, however, been understood more in terms of cultivating friendly relationships with most Middle Eastern countries, not including Israel. Epitomized by regular high-level political visits and high volumes of economic exchanges, Turkish officials have demonstrated their desire to rekindle Ankara’s reticent relations with these states. Many interested observers have reassessed their own understanding of the foundations of Turkish foreign policy based on new behaviors of the Turks. The Mideast region has become a litmus test for Turkey’s detachment from Western nations.

The wider Middle East, however, is only one part of Turkey’s recent approach toward the East, which covers a very large geographical area. Like many other countries, Turkey under the AKP has carved out its own East-looking orientation. By concentrating primarily on the rising powers of Asia, Turkey has not simply extended its policy toward the Middle East. In the same way, Turkish objectives in a rising Asia could seek to complement its larger stakes in the Middle East.

There have been ups and downs in Ankara’s interactions with Asian countries, but a great many of those developments have been obscured by hectic relations with the Middle East. What would, then, define the characteristics of a Turkish look-East orientation under the AKP leadership? Why did the Turkish state need to formulate its own approach in the first place? How did Turkey’s new orientation toward a rising Asia play out in practice? Which areas of bilateral interactions have been especially conducive to Turkey’s recent proclivities? Have Asian countries generally been willing to reciprocate Turkey’s look-East drive?

REVERTING TO ROOTS, SEEKING REWARDS

As a country with territories in both Europe and Asia, the modern Turkish republic, as the legitimate heir to the Ottoman Empire, is a proud state long associated with a dual identity. Throughout the 20th century, the Turks strove to augment their European identity without discarding their Asian credentials. Decades of rule by worldly and secular elements played a very critical role in directing the country toward Europe and implanting a pro-Western and forward-looking lifestyle in the minds of many Turkish citizens. Still, the religious traditionalists and Islamist forces in Turkey did not disappear. They occasionally posed significant threats to the secular establishment, but failed to bring down the system safeguarded by the army as the ultimate custodian of secularism. It was only in 2002 that the AKP-led Islamists managed to unseat the secularist politicians and remain at the helm of state affairs for the longest period in contemporary Turkish history.