This paper will analyze the flotilla crisis in terms of its broader implications for the security perspectives of Turkey and Israel. The crisis, which ensued in the aftermath of the Israeli raid into the Turkish aid convoy on 31 May 2010, has been evaluated as an exception to otherwise good relations between the two countries. I will argue that this crisis should be evaluated within the context of changing security perceptions in the Middle East long in the making. No longer perceiving its neighbors as security threats, Turkey embarked on a road to collide with other countries that base their regional security perception on external threats and enemies. In that sense, we can argue that a "clash of security perceptions" culminated in the flotilla crisis. In this paper, I will attempt to analyze three aspects of Turkey's changed security perception and their implication for the Middle East security: 1) the structural changes that took place in Turkish foreign policy over the past decade, 2) Turkey's increased foreign policy activism in the Middle East, 3) the current state of Turkish-Israeli bi-lateral relationship and its implications for the Middle East.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which religion has affected foreign policy decision-making in two countries which have officially professed secularism, namely Turkey and Syria. Militant secularism has been one of the foundational elements of the republic of Turkey, as Islam has been considered as one of the main reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire. This had an influence on foreign policy, as Turkey favoured relations with Western countries and neglected its Middle East neighbourhood despite century-old political and cultural links. This trend has been questioned since the rise of the post-Islamist Justice and Development Party to power in 2002. Under the AKP Turkish foreign policy regarding the Palestinian question has become progressively more balanced and even tilted towards the Palestinian side. Similarly relations with Islamic countries, such as Malaysia, Iran and the Gulf states notably improved. Syria has been a country ruled by a secular military regime which had its roots in the country's Alawite minority and professed strict Baath-style secularism. Yet this did not prevent Syria from developing close diplomatic relations with Iran, the region's theocratic republic. Its involvement in Lebanon through the Shiite group Hezbollah or in the Palestinian question through Hamas has also manifested that Syria could use religion as a tool in its foreign policy. In both countries, secularism has historically one of the most important political control levers to keep the large Sunni majority under control. Nonetheless, one can observe that established versions of secularism have come under increasing pressure. Reference to religious social values has increased in domestic and foreign policy discourses. The proposed paper aims to explore the role of religion in past and present foreign policy planning and making of Turkey and Syria. The shift from more secular to more religious views of foreign policy will be examined. It will also investigate the possible interaction between secular and religious groups in the formation of national interest and foreign policy in Turkey and Syria. This paper will explore to what extent the observed increased role of religion in foreign policy making can be linked to the global resurgence of religion as an ideational factor or changes specific to the countries under examination. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of whether religion is in fact instrumentalized by secularly-thinking foreign policy makers or there is a genuine shift towards a religious understanding of foreign policy.

Turkish-Iranian relations have flourished parallel to Ankara's reorientation toward the Middle East. Two highly-publicized developments underscore how Iran has grown in importance for Turkish foreign policy. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's objections to harsher Western responses to the Iranian nuclear program, and the warm welcome the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad continues to receive from the Turkish leaders are taken as indications of changing priorities of Turkey's Middle East policy. Turkey's growing divergence from the transatlantic agenda on such issues raises an interesting question: what drives the rapidly evolving cooperation between Ankara and Tehran? Can this change be explained by reference to the identity of Turkey's incumbent Justice and Development Party (JDP)? The paper questions identity-based explanations of Turkey's policy towards Iran under the rule of the JDP, and proposes instead the examination of the Turkish-Iranian relations from the 'energy cooperation' angle. By locating this case against the background of Turkey's dependence on imported hydrocarbons and its ambitions to assert its role as an energy transportation corridor, the paper traces how energy cooperation plays a major role in the deepening cooperation between Turkey and Iran. In 2009 alone, the JDP government pursued aggressive energy diplomacy, and signed various energy deals with Middle Eastern countries, especially Iran, Syria, Qatar, and Iraq. The most spectacular among these was a Turkish-Iranian deal on joint exploitation of Iranian natural gas reserves, and the export of Iranian gas to European markets via the planned Nabucco pipeline that crosses the Turkish territory. Contrary to the American position on Iran, Turkish government's insistence to integrate Iran into the Nabucco demonstrates the extent to which it is determined to play a more independent role in energy geopolitics, even at the expense of risking Turkey's ties with the West. Based on this case study, the paper puts forth two interrelated arguments: First, an identity-based explanation of Turkish foreign policy fails to fully account Turkey's recent activism in the Middle East. Second, Turkey's new foreign-policy agenda can be better comprehended if one considers it against the background of interest-driven factors, especially the growing role of energy geopolitics in shaping Turkey's foreign affairs. The paper concludes that the case of Turkish-Iranian relations is largely explained by considerations of national interests, as the recent energy agreements spearheaded by the Turkish government correlate with its aspirations to play a central role in regional and global politics.