![Türkiye, Emerging Post-American World Order, and Middle East & Europe Implications with Soli Özel [PODCAST]](https://4liberty.eu/phidroav/2026/09/Liberal-Europe-Podcast-Format-1-1-1024x1024.jpg "Türkiye, Emerging Post-American World Order, and Middle East & Europe Implications with Soli Özel [PODCAST]")
What is modern Türkiye’s relationship with its republican, secularist origins of Kemal Atatürk’s republic from 1923? How is the relationship between Türkiye, the United States, and the West evolving? How is Türkiye positioning itself in the region in the aftermath of the Arab Spring? And is Europe’s stance toward Türkiye hypocritical? Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Soli Özel, a Senior Fellow at Institut Montaigne and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), who currently teaches at Koç University in Istanbul. He co-authored a book with Michael T. Rock titled Elite Origins of Development and Democracy. Currently, he is working on another book with Michael T. Rock, tentatively entitled Elite Origins of Democracy and Development in the USA.
Leszek Jazdzewski (LJ): How would you describe the relationship between the current Turkish leadership and the ‘secularist’ origins of Kemal Atatürk’s republic from 1923?
Soli Özel (SO): The political party and its leadership that are in power today come from a political movement that was antithetical to the ‘secular’ principles of the republic. They had a problem with the way the republic was founded, and they had a problem with its principles and its overall trajectory.
Particularly important in this context was the principle of ‘secularism’, which is an a la Turca ‘secularism’ separating presumably state affairs and religion. However, Turkish identity for citizens always included the religious dimension. To this day, a non-Muslim is not understood to be a full-fledged citizen of the country.
When the ‘AKP’ came to power nearly 24 years ago—in fact, in about two months it will be 24 years since they won the elections of 2002—they have been running the country continuously since then as a single party. They operate within an unofficial coalition with the nationalists, making up part of the so-called ‘Republic Coalition’.
The emphasis on which principles should guide the country has changed. On the other hand, the very policies that they have put in place have continued secularizing society. Like in all such experiments, mosque attendance is down. The new generations have a very different relation to religion than the rulers had actually expected.
At some point when he was prime minister, today’s president, Mr. Erdoğan, declared their goal to raise religious and vengeful generations. Maybe the vengefulness is there, but religiosity seems to be slipping. Recently, there was the final of the Women’s Volleyball European Championship. Turkey played against Italy, which is a very strong team, and the Turkish women’s team won three to two. They became European champions, and this is the second time in a row. The more conservative Islamist constituencies or intellectuals in the country keep on attacking them because of their attire, but this is now the pride of the country.
You could see among the spectators a lot of children, a lot of women, and a lot of covered women, because the team actually makes the country proud. Whatever the ideological inclinations of the ruling elites today are, or the kinds of pressures they put on the country to further Islamize it—’sneaking Islamization’, as an academic called it—the process of ‘secularization’ in society continues unabated. This creates tensions because they hold power.
Finally, one observation that I have had for a while now is that the only political personality that Mr. Erdoğan was unable to beat, until the mayor of Istanbul who is now incarcerated, is Atatürk. He is becoming more and more popular, and this time not because the state imposes his identity on the country, but because people own up to him. There is genuinely now a popular popularity of Atatürk in the country, including among more conservative circles of society.
LJ: In the context of your previous work regarding the transatlantic drift, how do you differentiate between Turkey’s political Westernization and its strategic Westernness, and what is currently replacing that strategic orientation?
SO: In that article, I make a distinction between Turkey’s political Westernization and strategic Westernness. The argument in that essay was that although in terms of a Westernizing paradigm, the current rulers of Turkey are not much enamored of that choice, Turkey’s strategic Westernness actually remained. Whatever problems exist between Turkey and its allies in the Transatlantic Alliance, this strategic reality persists.
Throughout the Cold War and in the post-Cold War period, whatever problems Turkey had with its allies, it never even thought of leaving the NATO. I argue that in spite of the problems Turkey might have—particularly with the Europeans nowadays in terms of the supposed values of the European Union—the strategic orientation holds. The hypocrisy of that terminology really grates upon many Turks of my kind.
Strategically, Turkey is not about to leave the NATO. The defense minister, in an interview he gave a few months ago, stated that the NATO membership for Turkey was something that Turkey would never give up, and that it was the center of its strategic identity. Some of the commentary on Turkey’s so-called drift is either prejudicial or exaggerated.
Like many other countries in the alliance, Turkey does pursue its national interests in ways that may not always correspond to the collectivity. Then again, neither is Spain’s necessarily always in accord with the rest of the alliance. The case in point is that the Spaniards refuse to raise their expenditures on defense to five percent, as everybody is required to do by the United States.
Turkey remains firmly installed in the NATO. Politically, it gives the NATO a lot of headaches from time to time, but militarily it is a fairly well-functioning, very loyal, and very contributive member. It provides almost forty percent of all the intelligence on the Black Sea. It participates in many exercises, including in those places where it did not necessarily have an interest or did not participate in before, such as the Baltics.
Turkey’s Western strategic identity remains, with the proviso that Turkey also has other interests because it is located within one of the most problematic regions in the world. It is surrounded by the Black Sea, where there is a war between Ukraine and Russia. It is neighbors to Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
Syria has just finished its civil war. Iraq is still not a stable place, and Iran, the United States, and Israel are at war and have been at war for over seven months now. That is how I would answer it. The orientation of society in terms of a Westernizing modernity may have receded, but in terms of Turkey’s Western strategic identity, we are still in there.
This remains true in spite of talks, including a recent point where President Erdoğan stated that we may be interested in joining the ‘Shanghai Cooperation Organization’. Even then, he had to add that this would not contradict Turkey’s NATO membership. Obviously, many people disagree with that assertion.
LJ: How has Turkey positioned itself within the changing Middle Eastern environment following the ‘Arab Spring’, the collapse of the regime in Syria, and the ongoing regional conflicts involving Iran, Gaza, and Israel?
SO: In its first eight years in power, the AKP pursued a mostly pragmatic, economically oriented foreign policy. It appeared as if it sought European Union membership, which was an effective way to demilitarize Turkish politics. This goal also served their purposes because the military had been their nemesis in political terms in earlier times. In foreign policy, the ideological dimension was subdued, and the principle articulated at the time was ‘zero problems with neighbors’. Rather than using force or threats, the strategy was to open up as many markets in Turkey’s neighborhood and in Africa as possible. By 2012, there was more Turkish trade with the MENA region than there had ever been before.
During that period, Turkey also aimed to become a more active and influential player in regional matters across all surrounding areas. The government attempted to adjudicate problems between Bosnia and Serbia, as well as between Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Turkey associated itself very closely with Azerbaijan and maintained a lack of relations with Armenia. Furthermore, Turkey achieved a détente with Syria; relations improved significantly to the point that the leaders of the two countries vacationed together.
The ‘Arab revolts’ had the sudden impact of changing Turkish foreign policy from a more pragmatic footing to a much more ideological footing. The expectation was that the quasi-secular orders existing in the Middle East were being shaken. Democratic elections would follow, and if elections occurred, the Muslim Brotherhood – the best-organized political movement in the region – would gain power. The AKP possesses a strong affinity with the Muslim Brotherhood movements throughout the region, even if they are not organically linked. As these movements came to power in Tunisia and Egypt, Turkish leaders likely expected a similar outcome in Libya. Had this been followed by a Muslim Brotherhood government in Syria, Turkey, drawing on the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, would have emerged as the natural leader.
For approximately nine years, Turkey intervened in Syrian affairs. It perceived a threat from the Kurdish military organizations affiliated with the PKK, which is a terrorist organization recognized as such by the European Union and the United States. Turkey also sought to present itself as a ‘hegemonic power’ in the wider Middle East. That project ultimately failed by 2020.
By 2020, Turkey had exceptionally poor relations with almost every Arab country except for Qatar, which Turkey had assisted in 2017 when it faced pressure from the other GCC countries. The domestic economic situation was severe, and the Syrian policy did not yield the intended results, despite Turkey launching four military operations. Those operations did succeed in breaking the threat of a Kurdish entity forming south of the border. In 2020, this specific policy came to an end, and Turkey successfully mended fences with the Arab countries with which it had previously experienced strained relations.
The subsequent collapse of the regime in Syria was not a direct result of Turkish policies. It was beneficial to Turkey that it maintained protective relations with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. However, the primary reason the regime fell was that the Israeli military destroyed Hezbollah, which had previously kept the regime in place. The Russians, who had saved the regime in 2015, were occupied with the war in Ukraine. The Iranians were unable to assist because they themselves were under attack, and the Syrian regime could not sustain itself in power independently.
The demise of the Syrian regime was a direct or indirect result of the Israeli reaction to October 7 and the degradation of Iran’s ‘axis of resistance.’ This outcome became inevitable when Moscow informed the regime that it could not save them. Leaders of the new Syrian order negotiated with Russia, guaranteeing that Russian interests would not be entirely compromised, whereas Iranian officials cannot even officially enter Syria now. Currently, the new regime requires Turkish assistance and protection to consolidate its power, leaving Turkey deeply involved in Syrian affairs.
These developments have deteriorated Israeli-Turkish relations to an extent that no one in Turkey would have previously imagined. Some Israeli officials now view Turkey as having replaced Iran as a major threat, an assessment that is highly exaggerated. The rhetoric has escalated significantly. The primary Israeli grievance is that Turkey maintains close ties to Hamas and hosts some of its leaders within the country. Conversely, Hamas released the final hostages precisely because Turkey intervened.
Recently, the Israeli military bombed an empty airfield that Turkish teams had just repaired, under the pretext that Turkey intended to station troops there, despite the site being seventy kilometers from the Turkish border. Israel accuses Turkey of being an occupying force in northern Syria, while they themselves occupy the south of the country, launching airstrikes at will and undermining the sovereignty of Damascus.
It is obvious that the Israelis do not want a strong government in place in Damascus because they do not trust President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is a former jihadist and who probably has blood on his hands. Most of his people are of that specific kind.
This reality is very strange, and I disagree with the premise that Israel is gaining strength. Israel did gain strength on many historical occasions, but this current confrontation involving Iran, the way Israel reacted to October 7, the brutality with which it attacked Gaza, and the kinds of things that are happening in the West Bank will have severe consequences. The erosion of political support throughout the world for Israel—and most importantly, within United States public opinion—will make Israel a lot weaker tomorrow than they were on October 6, 2023. That was the day before Hamas brutally attacked Israeli villages and murdered over 1,200 people, some of whom were soldiers.
In the general context, Israel and Turkey appear today as two hegemonic competitors, in spite of the fact that overall, their national interests do not necessarily clash. However, so long as the Israelis do not have any intention of solving the Palestinian problem and the Turks position themselves as champions of it—more of Hamas than of the general Palestinian cause, but that is perhaps another topic—the tension is going to be there.
My hunch is that as this endless war between the Iranians, the Americans, and the Israelis continues, and it may yet escalate, everyone’s interest in the region will ultimately center on the containment of Iran. Maybe that regional reality will eventually help ameliorate relations between Israel and Turkey tomorrow, but today it is much tenser than I have ever seen it to be, or that anyone who has ever had any dealings with Israel would have expected it to turn out as.
LJ: Given Turkey’s historical role as a European power, its pursuit of strategic autonomy in an emerging multipolar world, and its long-standing rivalry with Russia, how do you see the future relationship between the European Union and Turkey evolving, particularly regarding its military importance to Europe?
SO: What is ‘the West’ today? Is the AfD’s Germany the Germany we had yesterday? Will Le Pen’s France be the France that we have known for eighty years? Will Farage’s Britain be the Britain of eighty years earlier? If your government changes tomorrow, what kind of government will it be?
There is a crisis of ‘the West’, both as a strategic concept and in its actual substance. Looking at the American behavior vis-a-vis the European allies, there is a distinct dismissiveness. The conception of ‘the West’ that was created after 1945 is being shaken, as is its core content. This destabilization is evident with MAGA in the United States and all the radical right-wing parties in different countries of Europe that are taking advantage of the discontent that much of the population feels these days. There is an identity crisis which is also a security crisis. In that sense, to talk about whether Turkey is really Western does not make as much sense as it might have fifteen or twenty years ago.
Until recently, President Erdoğan always stated that Turkey’s strategic goal was to become a member of the European Union. François de la Rochefoucauld once noted that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. However, in a recent interview given to Al Jazeera Television, Erdoğan stated that it was no longer the primary priority. He indicated that Turkey still desired membership, but it was no longer the number one priority.
The Turkish side is not solely responsible for the current state of relations. The Europeans have been utterly hypocritical in the way they have dealt with Turkey. It was far more important for European leadership to secure the migration agreement with Turkey, which is quite frankly an appalling agreement. While there is reliance on the Turkish military for European security, Europe remains completely silent about the shrinking of the democratic space, the trampling upon human rights, and the incarceration of elected officials on trumped-up charges. It is as if these events are happening in a different world.
With that kind of hypocrisy, they are even losing the Turkish public. In spite of everything, the public remains overwhelmingly in favor of European Union membership because their aspirations are not Middle Eastern or Central Asian. Their aspirations align with a European model that predates the rise of the AfD or Le Pen. Consequently, this political crisis is not going to go away anytime soon. There are approximately four to five million Turks living in different countries of the European Union. If the right wing asserts itself in many more countries, the fate of those individuals will generate significant tension.
The Europeans also appear uninterested in integrating Turkey organically into their new security architecture, choosing instead to keep it merely as a collaborator. That is a bad idea. For Turkey as well, to think that it can manage by simply being a collaborator without being integrated is equally wrong. Turkey does possess a strong military and has a budding defense industry, particularly in drone technology, but it still faces technological incapacities. It is improving on those areas, but that process will take time. A more organic relationship is necessary. Trust is totally absent between the two sides, but if a trusting relationship can be built in security, then political alignment may follow. One must ask whether there will even be a European Union as we know it in ten years.
Nations like Hungary and the Baltic states appreciate Turkey’s geopolitical position. They appreciate what Turkey has done regarding Ukraine and Russia far more than Western Europeans do. The fact that Turkey does not join the sanctions regime is usually used to criticize the country, but it was a sanctions regime that nobody consulted Turkey about to begin with. Furthermore, Turkey historically has never joined any sanctions regimes that were not mandated by a United Nations decision.
There is a lot of ill will both domestically and in Western nations when commenting on these problems. It is very easy to leave out inconvenient facts during a discussion. In the perilous environment we are living in, intellectuals ought to be far more honest and comprehensive about their assessments rather than being partial or militant.
This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movimento Liberal Social and the Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of.