The AKP’s foreign policy challenges after the Arab Spring

This policy brief analyzes Turkey’s position in the unfolding Middle East, illustrating the tension between Turkey’s ambitions and some of the challenges it faces from an international, regional and national perspective. The report seeks to understand how the AKP’s policy of soft power has fared after the Arab Spring. The focus is particularly on the case of Syria as it was both the biggest success of Turkey’s soft power policy and Turkey’s greatest challenge in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In particular, the report examines how the Kurdish issue impacts and is impacted by the events in the region, seeking to illustrate its reprecussions at the three levels noted above.