Manifestations of Islam in Turkey’s Foreign Policy: Islamic Internationalism and Turkish Islam

Abstract

The incumbent government of the Justice and development party (turkish-Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-aKp) has often been accused of pursuing an islamic agenda, particularly in its foreign policy, due to its concern shown for restoring turkey's bonds with the Muslim countries broken off by the Kemalist regime. The post-arab spring political developments in the neighbouring countries and turkey embarking on religious discourse in approaching them, particularly in the cases of Egypt, palestine, and recently syria, have further solidified such arguments. Keeping these debates in mind, this paper aims to elaborate the actual weight islam carries in turkey's aKp era of foreign policy and what such policy entails. This paper argues that turkey's confident use of religion in foreign policy cannot be simply defined as an "islamic foreign policy'", and neither can its foreign policy be disassociated from religion's constitutive role. from the turkish perspective, islam manifests itself as two distinct but partly overlapping and sometimes contradictory practices, namely islamic internationalism and turkish islam. While the former refers to turkey's responsibility towards Muslim communities on the basis of the ummah, the latter refers to promoting the performance of ottoman/turkish islamic practices arTiCLEs

Religion and International Relations in the Middle East as a Challenge for International Relations (IR) Studies

“…Today, we observe a renaissance for Islam's political role in this state (neo-Ottomanism), but without any absolute disruption of the continuity with the secular past. The protection of Muslims and religion and the aid for fellow believers in need have, in fact, become key planks of Turkey's foreign-policy platform (Tabak 2017).…”