Turkey’s road to a diplomacy of loneliness

Duvar English

Retired Turkish Ambassador Namık Tan said that today the global image of Turkish foreign policy doesn’t look good, with the country facing loneliness in diplomacy.

In a recent piece he penned for YetkinReport, Tan argued that despite the increasing regional challenges, the real reason for Turkey's problems lies in domestic politics while referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's strategy to leverage nationalism for his own political agenda.

"The country is now more polarized than ever and an environment of constant turmoil and bigotry defines Turkish politics. And in this environment, foreign policy is no longer guided by career professionals but by the whims of angry crowds," Tan wrote.

Namık Tan said that, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served for more than 30 years, now regularly publishes emotionally impaired, meaningless and inconsistent statements.

"The government of Turkey needs to refrain from taking any foreign policy decision without defining a clear 'exit strategy'. While important policy initiatives were taken that filled up significant political, economic and military capacities from the state, no such strategy was ever defined. For example, ordering Turkish Armed Forces to enter Syria and engaging in military operations in Libya, while also committing military capacity in the Eastern Mediterranean carrying out gunboat diplomacy with France and Greece, is going to prove difficult to sustain," he said.

Ambassador Namık Tan's piece in full can be reached here.