Turkish Foreign Policy and Palestinian Issue: an Iranian Perspective (2002-2020)

The AKP’s policy towards Palestine is the main core of this article. The Turkish authorities have tried to play as the mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and have attempted through various political and economic initiatives to support a peace agreement between both sides. However, after the 2008 Gaza war, the AKP government’s foreign policy stance towards Israel began to change, at least officially. This war, alongside to other events such as 2009 Davos, the 2010 Low Chair and the 2010 Mavi Marmara, produced a public political conflict in the Turkish-Israeli relations. This tension extended from the 2008 Gaza war until the normalization deal between the two countries in June 2016. But this political tension did not have very impact on the other current fields of cooperation between Ankara and Tel Aviv. This emphasizes clearly that both countries were pragmatic in maintaining efficient and strategic ties. The major research question can be stated as the following: What has been the Turkish government's policy on the Palestinian issue between 2002-2020? In addition we want to assess the proximity and distance of Turkey's policies from Iranian perspectives and positions. In order to provide a deep analysis, away from repetition, speeches or the bias to one of the parties, this research is relying on proofs and investigations. Based on a documentary research, we attempt to form our analysis by a content analysis combined with a descriptive explanatory.