A new sector in Turkish foreign policy: Mediation

Recently, Turkish policy-makers defined Turkey as a 'natural born mediator' and called Turkey's engagement in good offices and mediation part of a new vision in Turkish foreign policy. This was also characterized by the media as a 'new sector' in Turkish foreign policy. Although Turkey's new role was subject to extensive public and media debate, academic literature did not cover it adequately, rather using it as further evidence for their diverse theoretical frameworks. This paper attempts to open up a debate on Turkey's newly adopted role as a mediator and analyzes it from a rational choice institutionalist point of view. It concludes that the EU conditionality has been an instrumental but not a driving factor in Turkey's newly adopted role. It has been used by governments since 1987, as the timeline of this paper indicates, as a way to demonstrate Turkey's adherence to the policy of good neighborly relations and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Even after the EU suspended negotiations, Turkey's active involvement in good offices and mediation missions did not diminish nor did its reduced credibility result in the reversal of the process.