Türkiye has pursued normalization with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel and Saudi Arabia over the last two years, which enabled that country to strengthen its bilateral cooperation with the participants of both summits.

Following the Arab Spring, all the nations in the Middle East started to pursue a phase of regional softness after a protracted era of strife and rivalry. In many areas of the Middle East, the normalization agenda is being implemented in a coordinated manner based on specific concerns.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape the international balance of power. In this new era, Türkiye distinguishes itself thanks to its diplomatic activity. Indeed, the country has been so important that the Western media, which constantly refer to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as “the sultan,” cannot help but concede that cooperation with Türkiye is absolutely necessary. Surely enough, all eyes turned to Erdoğan when the world needed a broker between Russia and Ukraine, someone needed to create a "grain corridor" in the Black Sea and when Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership.

The visit had global-level dynamics. On one hand, both countries want to decrease their respective dependencies on global powers and need to cooperate with one another. On the other hand, they want to increase their global autonomy. They have begun to instrumentalize a global power against the other.

In this collection of essays, we discuss how NATO can overcome strategic challenges and recalibrate the strength of the alliance under the new geopolitical circumstances. The essays in this report focus on NATO’s transformations after the Ukraine war and attempt to understand Türkiye’s foreign policy alternatives within the context of its relations with the West, Russia, and NATO.

This paper consists of two main parts. In the first part, it explains the main priorities that NATO is focusing on by elaborating on the Russian attack on Ukraine, the China challenge, and the changing character of military and non-military threats. In the second part, the paper delivers a framework to make sense of why Türkiye particularly attaches unique significance to some issues. It concludes that Türkiye will continue to support NATO endeavors but the country expects its allies to cooperate on counterterrorism efforts and also expects calibrated and meaningful engagement in Greek-Turkish disagreements.

Ankara hopes to be a balancing factor in the region that generates security and stability.

This analysis examines the reasons behind Greece’s policy of escalating tension and whether that policy has any legal ground.

Athens must restore the demilitarized status of the islands without further delay – unless it wants its sovereignty over the Eastern Aegean islands to be called into question.

Ankara seeks to properly synchronize the simultaneous normalization processes with its partners for a strategic balance of power in the region

'One could expect normalization between Ankara and Riyadh to occur as quickly as the process between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates'

It may not be easy for Turkey and Saudi Arabia to open a fresh chapter quickly, but both have already taken good steps toward it

Considering that there will certainly be fresh crises in the future just like the recent one in Al-Aqsa, Ankara and Tel Aviv should focus on ways to overcome the serious tests through diplomacy

Whatever it does, the opposition bloc in Turkey fails to come up with a consistent mutual political agenda against what it sees as its rival

The question of sanctions could be a good way for Turkey and the U.S. to start repairing fractured relations amid the new dynamic

The Turkish government's new diplomatic initiative with its regional and global partners is based on logic, while the opposition still has no idea why it rejects the process

The new phase in Turkey's ties with the African continent is beyond a mere economic project, and offers a great future for both sides based on mutual gains