On the British side, the participants included Dominic Grieve, UK shadow justice secretary, Lord Howell of Guildford, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, and Lord Hannay of Chiswick. On the Turkish side, Egemen Bağış, the Turkish state minister for EU affairs, Yaşar Yakıs, the former foreign minister, Kürşat Tüzmen, the former state minister, Suat Kiniklıoğlu, chairman of the Turkish-British Interparliamentary Friendship Group, Nursuna Memecan, member of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Murat Yalçıntaş, chairman of the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Mehmet Öğütçü, Dr. Talip Küçükcan, Mustafa Akyol, Cemalettin Haşimi and myself.The half-day roundtable produced interesting perspectives with lively debates and exchanges about Turkish-British relations, Turkey’s EU relationship and the future of global politics. Most of the British speakers noted the emergence of Turkey as a regional player and major soft power. One speaker referred to Cold War narratives and how they underlie the debate about Turkey’s shift of axis in its foreign policy. He and others rightly noted that Turkey is no longer a country in the Cold War and that we have to treat Turkey accordingly, i.e., as an equal partner in its own right.
One key point that is gaining further currency in the international discussions of Turkey is the emergence of a greater understanding about Turkey’s new foreign policy. Like many sound-minded Europeans and Americans, our British colleagues do not see a contradiction between Turkey’s traditional alliance with the West and the expansion of Turkish foreign policy into areas that were once considered to be taboo. Just as the UK’s leading role in the EU does not take away anything from its transatlantic alliance with the US, Turkey’s attempt to normalize relations with its neighbors does not diminish the significance of Turkey’s EU membership process.
It is also noted by an increasing number of analysts and policy makers that Turkey’s multiple identities do not amount to an oxymoron or a crisis of identity. As both Turkish and British speakers noted, Turkey is an Eastern, Western, Muslim, secular, democratic, Middle Eastern and European country all at the same time. Multiple and multi-dimensional identities have become a reality of our lives in the 21st century. Those who cannot reconcile their multiple identities end up either in radical, exclusivist identities or in a total loss of all identities.
In the case of the former, one-dimensional and oppositional identities take over, leaving very little space for constructive interaction with others. Various extremist groups around the world are an example of this. In the case of the latter, we end up losing all identity claims and pretend to be a ‘global citizen’ without any roots. While ‘global citizenship’ can be the prerogative of some highly educated classes at an abstract level, it cannot explain the sense of belonging and identity shared by millions of people around the world.
Turkey’s multiple identities at the domestic and regional levels do not obviate creative synthesis. To the contrary, they empower Turkey to be a self-confident player looking at multiple directions simultaneously. That is why multi-dimensional foreign policy is an important feature of Turkey’s new foreign policy activism and will remain so in the years to come regardless of who is in power. As the participants in the House of Lords note, however, the multi-dimensional nature of international relations is increasingly becoming an essential feature of our lives in the 21st century. In short, Turkey is moving with the spirit of the time!
