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Turkey and Eurasia: Frontiers of a new geographic imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Bülent Aras  and
Hakan Fidan
Bülent Aras
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations, Işık University, Kumbaba Mevkii, 34980, Şile, İstanbul, abulent@isikun.edu.tr
Hakan Fidan
Affiliation:
Deputy Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry of Turkey, hakanfidan@bilkent.edu.tr
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Abstract

Turkey has adopted a new course in foreign policy toward Eurasia. This article employs the notion of geographic imagination to analyze how Turkish policy-makers have developed a new political rhetoric and foreign policy towards the Eurasian region, specifically Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia. Turkish policy-makers aim to further Turkey's interests ranging from security, over regional trade, to energy issues in this geography, in addition to creating an environment of cooperation and eliminating regional power constellations. We conclude that Turkey's renewed activism has opened new horizons for its relations in this region and that this new foreign policy orientation is linked to reform and change in Turkey's domestic landscape.

Keywords

Critical geopoliticsTurkeyEurasiaRussian FederationCaucasus
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 40: Special Issue on Turkish Foreign Policy , Spring 2009 , pp. 193 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2006

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