Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Balkans

The geostrategic importance of the Balkans has appeared since the Ottoman period, especially because it was above the trade routes, and the search for sovereignty in the region had been sustained by different actors for hundreds of years (Turan, 2005,51).

Turkish Migration to the Balkans The first Turkish immigration to the region occurred by Scythians in the 2nd century BC.

Three Ideas in the Period of Dissolution During the dissolution period of the Ottoman Empire, the ideas of Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism were widely adopted in order to prevent uprisings and independence movements.

Against the idea of nationalism that emerged after the French Revolution of 1789, the policy of accepting different groups as one nation (Ottoman Nation) and bringing them together on a common ground is called Ottomanism.

One of the two important points that shaped the foreign policy of the Atatürk period was the new international scene left by the First World War, and the other was the formation of a newly established Republic.

The First Balkan Conference, October 1930, Athens

With the Pact of Balkan Entente, it can be argued that the first achievement of Turkish foreign policy was the Straits question.

The Pact of Balkan Entente, signed in 1934 came to an end with Romania’s transition to the axis side in May 1941 and the occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia (Kurat, 1975, 272). One of the most important consequences of this cooperation is that it provides a limited-time guarantee in Turkish foreign policy, even if it were partially, on the Eastern border as well as on the Western, as mentioned before.

During the Cold War, Turkey’s general stance was generally located next to the Western bloc, though it had sometimes doubted this situation and had placed it against the Western bloc.

The members of the Pact of Balkan Entente: Greece, Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia.

The members of the Balkan Pact: Greece, Turkey, SFR Yugoslavia.

The Saadabad Pact (1937) and the Pact of Balkan Entente (1934) are the regional and security cooperation treaties that carried out on Turkey’s own initiative for the same period.

The national airspace is the land country under the state sovereignty and the airspace placed above the inland and territorial waters in this land.

The Dayton Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and has both military and political scope, was signed in 1995. Turkey, within the scope of the agreement, (IFOR forces established under the umbrella of NATO was reshaped with the name of SFOR in 1996) sent its soldiers in the region de facto and contributed to the preservation of peacekeeping (Dalar, 2008, 98-99).

“South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) that brings together Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Croatia, Moldova and Montenegro is a symbol of the common will of the countries of the region to improve cooperation among themselves and to bring lasting stability in South East Europe. SEECP is the only Balkan cooperation forum in the region.”

Public Diplomacy Kocabıyık (2019, 164) expressed that public diplomacy has the ability to appeal to the hearts and reminded that it took place in the literature with the concept of soft power.

The significance of this situation is related to the fact that Serbia has not recognized Kosovo because Serbia argues that the territory of Kosovo belongs to Serbia.

The period between 1923 and 1938 has been described as maintaining status quo in the Balkans and maintaining regional security (Turan, 2005, 100).

Romania. Turkey’s Export: 3,857,233,000 Turkey’s Import: 248,3071,000 Balance of Trade: 137,4162,000

The basis of the problem is that, despite the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, Turks living in the region are accepted as a religious minority and their ethnic identity is not accepted by Greece and even perceived as a threat to their territorial integrity (Keyvan, 2012, 26).