Ties to Neighbors, Not Their Dictators
By Soner Cagaptay
New York Times, November 15, 2011
The Middle East is not Benelux, unfortunately -- not yet. In 2002, when Turkey's newly elected Justice and Development Party began a policy of rapprochement with the country's Middle Eastern neighbors, including Syria, the hope was that this would jump-start integration between Turkey and its neighbors, creating something like the 1950s "Benelux" bloc of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Ankara also hoped to benefit from this process by building soft power across the Muslim Middle East, in hope of rising up as a regional leader.
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