By SUSANNE GÜSTEN
ISTANBUL — Gazing out over a sea of cheering Turks after his election victory on Sunday night, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised his voice to address an audience far beyond the Turkish borders.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday.
“I greet with affection the peoples of Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Tunis, Sarajevo, Skopje, Baku, Nicosia and all other friends and brother peoples who are following the news out of Turkey with great excitement,” Mr. Erdogan called from a balcony in Ankara, hours after sweeping into a third term in office in a parliamentary election that won his Justice and Development Party 50 percent of the vote.
“Today, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans have won as much as Turkey,” Mr. Erdogan said. “We will become much more active in regional and global affairs.” To the elated crowd, he added: “We will take on a more effective role. We will call, as we have, for rights in our region, for justice, for the rule of law, for freedom and democracy.”
With his victory speech, Mr. Erdogan outlined a shift in Turkish foreign policy approach that could have wide-ranging consequences in a turbulent region, analysts say. Caught off-guard by the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, Ankara is ditching a policy that prized stability above all else, rested almost exclusively on contacts with regional governments and made Turkey, a country aspiring to be a regional leader, appear like a friend of dictators.
In the new era, Mr. Erdogan will bypass governments in the region if necessary and reach out to their citizens with support for democratic and economic reforms, government officials and foreign policy experts say. While the approach is new, Ankara’s strategic goal remains to bolster a region that can prosper and also offer opportunities for Turkey’s growing economy.
Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser, said this week, “Right now, change is the key to stability in the region,” adding that “we will see a lot of exchange between Turkey and these countries.” He emphasized that Turkey would be “supportive of the process” of transition to democracy.
Outreach to populations in the region does not preclude more traditional ties to governments. “Turkey is able to reach out to both the people and the governments,” Mr. Kalin said. “We will continue to work with elected governments.”
One element likely to play a key role in the new Turkish approach is the near pop-star status enjoyed by Mr. Erdogan in parts of the Middle East. He has become hugely popular among Arab populations because of Turkey’s success in joining Islam with democracy, Celalettin Yavuz, deputy director of the Turkish Center for International Relations & Strategic Analysis, a research group in Ankara, said in a telephone interview.
Another part of Turkey’s appeal is its growing affluence. The country’s gross domestic product has tripled since the governing Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., came to power in 2002. “They want to see the A.K.P. as a model and Erdogan as a leader,” Mr. Yavuz said about people in the Middle East. “The dictatorial regimes of many Arab countries may hate Turkey for this, but Turkey’s influence on the public in these countries is rising.”
Until last year, Turkey’s regional foreign policy efforts had been focused on projects like a free-trade zone of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, Mr. Yavuz said. “Now, who is even talking about such a common market in the region?”
Mr. Erdogan’s victory speech marked the official start of the new era, analysts say. “It is a historical initiative — he was setting out a new vision” for Turkish foreign policy, Hasan Kanbolat, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, another research group in Ankara, said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Erdogan specifically addressed himself to the regions of Turkey’s historical sphere of influence, Mr. Kanbolat said, noting that it was the first time he had raised foreign policy issues in an election night speech. “He was telling those peoples that Turkey will stand up for their rights not only on its own soil but in the whole region,” Mr. Kanbolat said. “We are entering an era in which Turkey will be more involved” in the problems of its neighbors, he added. “The main change is that there will be less emphasis on top-level and economic ties, and more emphasis on closer ties to the populaces, to the people.”
via Mandate for a New Turkish Era – NYTimes.com.