Turkish-Iranian cooperation has visibly intensified in recent years, thanks in part to Turkish energy needs and Iran's vast oil and natural gas resources. However, Turkey and Iran tend to be rivals rather than close partners. While they may share certain economic and security interests, especially regarding the Kurdish issue, their interests are at odds in many areas across the Middle East. Turkey's support for the opposition in Syria, Iran's only true state ally in the Middle East, is one example. Iraq has also become a field of growing competition between Turkey and Iran. Iran's nuclear program has been a source of strain and divergence in U.S.-Turkish relations. However, the differences between the United States and Turkey regarding Iran's nuclear program are largely over tactics, not strategic goals. Turkey's main fear is that Iran's acquisition of nuclear arms could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. This, in turn, could increase pressure on the Turkish government to consider developing its own nuclear weapon capability. U.S. and Turkish interests have become more convergent since the onset of the Syrian crisis. However, while U.S. and Turkish interests in the Middle East closely overlap, they are not identical. Thus, the United States should not expect Turkey to follow its policy toward Iran unconditionally. Turkey has enforced United Nations sanctions against Iran but, given Ankara's close energy ties to Tehran, may be reluctant to undertake the harshest measures against Iran.

Turkish-Iranian cooperation has visibly intensified in recent years, thanks in part to Turkish energy needs and Iran0́9s vast oil and natural gas resources. However, Turkey and Iran tend to be rivals rather than close partners. While they may share certain economic and security interests, especially regarding the Kurdish issue, their interests are at odds in many areas across the Middle East. Turkey0́9s support for the opposition in Syria, Iran0́9s only true state ally in the Middle East, is one example. Iraq has also become a field of growing competition between Turkey and Iran. Iran0́9s nuclear program has been a source of strain and divergence in U.S.-Turkish relations. However, the differences between the United States and Turkey regarding Iran0́9s nuclear program are largely over tactics, not strategic goals. Turkey0́9s main fear is that Iran0́9s acquisition of nuclear arms could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. This, in turn, could increase pressure on the Turkish government to consider developing its own nuclear weapon capability. U.S. and Turkish interests have become more convergent since the onset of the Syrian crisis. However, while U.S. and Turkish interests in the Middle East closely overlap, they are not identical. Thus, the United States should not expect Turkey to follow its policy toward Iran unconditionally. Turkey has enforced United Nations sanctions against Iran but, given Ankara0́9s close energy ties to Tehran, may be reluctant to undertake the harshest measures against Iran.

This book provides an overview of successes and failures of Turkey’s mediation initiatives in different fragile and post-conflict societies. It is the first of its kind to run a systematic analysis of Turkey’s peacemaking. This edited collection treats its readers with a variety of analyses on the dominant narratives that guide Turkish mediation, the tools used by the Turkish government, and Turkey’s evolving self-image as a mediator since the mid-2000s. The book sheds a critical spotlight on the learning curve of the Turkish Foreign Policy as it initiated and supported peace processes between the western Balkan countries, in the Middle East, in post-civil war Somalia, and in the nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1. The book concludes with a summary of assets, challenges, and opportunities for Turkey’s sustained emergence as a mediator in international politics.

The Iranian nuclear crisis is a proxy arena for competing visions about the functioning of international relations. This book is the first to provide comprehensive and comparative analyses to conceptualise the interaction between ‘hegemonic structures’ and those actors resisting them using the Iranian nuclear case as an illustration. It analyses the foreign policies of China, Russia and Turkey towards the Iranian nuclear programme and thereby answers the question to what extent these policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. Based on 70 elite interviews with experts and decision-makers closely involved with the Iranian nuclear file, it analyses resistance to hegemony across its ideational, material and institutional framework conditions. The cases examined show how ‘compliance’ on the part of China, Russia and Turkey with parts of US approaches to the Iranian nuclear conflict has been selective, and how US policy preferences in the Iran dossier have been resisted on other occasions. As such, the Iran nuclear case serves as an illustration to shed light on the contemporaneous interaction of the forces of consent and coercion in international politics. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in International Relations, Security Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis.

The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics pulls together contributions from many of the world’s leading scholars on different aspects of Turkey. Turkey today is going through possibly the most turbulent period in its history, with major consequences both nationally and internationally. The country looks dramatically different from the Republic founded by Atatürk in 1923. The pace of change has been rapid and fundamental, with core interlinked changes in ruling institutions, political culture, political economy, and society. Divided into six main parts, this Handbook provides a single-source overview of Turkish politics: Part I: History and the making of Contemporary Turkey Part II: Politics and Institutions Part III: The Economy, Environment and Development Part IV: The Kurdish Insurgency and Security Part V: State, Society and Rights Part VI: External Relations This comprehensive Handbook is an essential resource for students of Politics, International Relations, International/Security Studies with an interest on contemporary Turkey.

How will the growing Islamic resurgence affect the political stability of the Middle East? What are the prospects for democracy in the area? How will the continued Iranian-Saudi and Israeli-Syrian rivalries affect political stability in that area? What are the prospects for the deceleration of the arms race? Are the Kurds likely to enjoy continued autonomy in Iraq? These questions are answered in this study.

The foreign policies of Turkey and Iran seem increasingly to dictate the course of events in the Middle East. More recently, and especially following the Syrian crisis, the spotlight has turned to these states' dynamic re-entry onto the political stage, revealing them as key players with an international role in efforts towards the balance of power across the region. This book traces the major determinants of Turkish and Iranian foreign policies and their influence on events in the Middle East. Based on an examination of these states' politics and policies since 1979, and using material gathered from interviews with leading political figures from Turkey, Iran and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Marianna Charountaki offers fresh insights into how we understand the contemporary global order. Of particular importance, this book shows, is the effect of both external and internal factors on foreign policy and how the interaction between state and non-state actors informs political decisions. In placing these issues in a theoretical framework, Marianna Charountaki pioneers a new conceptual map within International Relations. An interdisciplinary study that provides a fresh new perspective, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of International Relations, Politics, Foreign Policy, Kurdish and Middle East Studies.

This book examines political, social, and economic interactions in highly interconnected areas, stretching from Europe to Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, labelled as Trans-Europe. The first part of the book focuses on the interests of several leading actors in Trans-Europe. The second part deals with the actions of national actors trying to compete with the EU influence in their shared neighbourhood. The third part studies cross-border issues, such as economic dynamics, migration flows and energy markets in the Trans-European space.

This book analyses Iran’s foreign policy in order to better assess its relations with India and the factors that are propelling the two nations closer. In a region susceptible to power plays, how far can India-Iran partnership go? This book will be of interest to scholars of International Relations, Iranian Politics and Iranian Foreign Policy. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This edited volume is the product of the Young Scholars on Turkey (YSOT) Conference held in Washington, D.C. on February 12, 2014. We have worked with the presenters of the conference to transform their paper presentations into chapter-long analyses of various domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. The diversity of papers in terms of content and approach, combining historical analyses, theoretical exercises, and case studies, makes this compilation an interesting read for both academic and policy audiences. Chapters provide us with fresh research findings from early career academics on domestic and foreign policy issues. We hope that they contribute to a growing number of nuanced and careful analyses on Turkey.