Identical –notions and Turkey's Foreign Policy towards the Syrian Civil War

Analyzing Turkey's foreign policy positions to the dynamics in Syria is important, considering the strategic importance of the latter country in different dimensions. Turkey’s approaches towards the development of the Syrian civil war have gone through the changing trends since the beginning of Syria conflict in 2011 until today. The article tries to answer the question of what role have the identity notions played in Turkey's foreign policy regarding the Syrian civil war by applying a descriptive-explanatory method and through a constructivist theoretical approach. Beyond the realistic approaches, this paper also tests this hypothesis that Turkey’s foreign policy towards Syria could be explained based on Turkey's identical notions. The research findings show that Turkey's foreign policy towards the Syrian civil war in the regional and international spheres has been shaped by an amalgamation of the country's identical notions such as the nationalist concepts, denying the Kurdish factor, opposing the Islamic resistance and competition with Iran, the identity of Muslim brotherhood and presenting a model of Turkish Islam and finally the concept of Neo-Ottomanism.