"Mr. Erdogan Visits Washington: The AKP's Foreign Policy and United States Interests
By Soner Cagtaptay
December 3, 2009
This PolicyWatch revisits some key points in the author's 2007 Washington Institute Policy Focus, Secularism and Foreign Policy in Turkey: New Elections, Troubling Trends. For more on this topic, please visit our Turkish Research Program page.
On December 7, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Washington to meet with President Barack Obama. The meeting follows Obama's April visit to Turkey, during which the U.S. leader reached out to Ankara in an effort to realign the countries' interests after the tumultuous years of the Bush administration. Despite Obama's efforts, Turkish foreign policy seems to be drifting farther away from the United States, especially on issues such as Iran and Sudan. To what extent can Washington use the upcoming visit to continue seeking alignment between U.S. and Turkish foreign policy objectives?"
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