"Ankara’s Growing Importance for Israel in the Post-American Middle East
7/29/2007 (Balkanalysis.com)
By Mehmet Kalyoncu
Several developments are concurrently taking place in and around the Middle East, both national and regional ones, which are likely to have wider implications. First, the United States is reluctantly starting to realize that the mission “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is failing, and that fairly soon the withdrawal of troops from Iraq will be no longer an option, but a necessity.
Second, Turkey voted for its future with the parliamentary elections on July 22. The AK Party of PM Erdogan won a landslide victory, receiving 46.6 percent of the votes and thus becoming the only party in the past 57 years to increase its votes in the second term.[i] As such, the electoral victory has not only given the AK Party another five year in office, but also a strong popular mandate for its policy course in both domestic and foreign affairs. However, although Erdogan’s AK Party has indeed won the right to form the new government, questions remain over whether it will be able to govern."
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