3210) Turkey’s Eurasian Agenda by F. Stephen Larrabee (Rand Corporation)

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Copyright 2011 Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Washington Quarterly. WINTER 2011

F. Stephen Larrabee holds the Distinguished Chair in European Security at the RAND Corporation. He is the author of Troubled Partnership: U.S.—Turkish Relations in an Era of Global Geo-political Change. Research for this article was undertaken while he was a Bosch Visiting Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in February—March 2010.

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In the last two decades, Eurasia has emerged as an area of growing strategic importance for Turkey. Much media attention has been driven by Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East, with Turkey’s rapprochement with Iran and Syria, its close ties to Hamas, and the growing strains in Ankara’s relations with Israel prompting concerns in various Western capitals, including Washington, that Turkey is reorienting its ties away from the West and toward the East.

Yet, Turkey has also pursued important foreign policy initiatives toward Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Ankara’s engagement in these regions represents . . .

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