Turkey: a neglected partner

Abstract

With the main focus of Barack H. Obama’s first foreign tour on multinational summitry (including the G20 summit in London and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] meeting in Strasbourg), capping his itinerary with a visit to Turkey seemed incongruous. After affirming in his April speech before Turkey’s parliament, known as the Grand National Assembly, that he had chosen Turkey “to send a message to the world” and then enumerating key global issues, Obama remarked, “No one nation can confront these challenges alone, and all nations have a stake in overcoming them We are stronger when we act together.”1 Yet this speech did not serve merely to differentiate Obama’s approach from the preceding administration’s reputation for unilateralism and “bring-it-on” confrontationalism. Although this renown was largely earned by U.S.-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama could have demonstrated his opposing policy sensibility anywhere other than in a Muslim-majority country.