Turkey and Europeanization of Foreign Policy?

Abstract

Many commentators have recently argued that the confirmation of Turkey's European Union (EU) membership candidacy status in December 199 and the initiation of the formal accession negotiations in October 2005 have accelerated the Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy (henceforth true Europeanization)} The most appropriate example mentioned in this regard is Turkey's refusal to cooperate with the United States on the eve of the war i Iraq in March 2003.The absence of EU support (particularly the German French axis) for the American war aims in Iraq was considered to have been one of the factors causing Turkey's reluctance to take part in the war.In a similar vein, Turkey's about-face in the Cyprus dispute has been attributed t the growing Turkish penchant for EU membership under the reign of the Justice and Development Party (henceforth AKP).The AKP leadership wa assumed to have believed that the faster the Cyprus dispute was resolved, the greater would be the chances of Turkey's accession to the European Union.2Analysts also point to Turkey's changing approach toward the Kurds of northern Iraq in recent years to demonstrate true Europeanization.The claim here is that Turkey's "realist exclusionist" approach toward Iraqi Kurds has gradually turned out to be "liberal integrationist," alongside the EU accessio 1 Eleni Lazarou, "A European State in the Making?Europeanization and Turkish Foreign Policy" (Hellenic Center for European Studies policy paper [EKEM]), 2006, accessed at http://www.ekem.gr