The Domestic Reasons For The Change Of Turkey’s Policy Towards Syria During AK Party Administration

AK Party in Turkey came into power in 2003 and succeeded in maintaining the power until now. Turkey-Syria relationships during this period have witnessed two big and complicated changes in its tone. In the beginning, AK Party thought highly of the friendly relations with Syrian. However, with the impacts of the Arab Spring, Turkey gave up the friendship with Syrian quickly.By studying the status seeking strategy and Kurdish problem, this paper finds two internal elements of Turkey to be of great importance in making its foreign policy towards Syria. The status seeking strategy changed Turkish traditional pro-western foreign policy, and prompted Turkey to improve its relations with Syria. The internal situation of Syria after the Arab Spring worsened quickly, and Turkey wanted to expand its international influence by this chance. However, Turkish attempt was damaged by Syrian government, which led to the departure of the two countries.After the Iraq War in 2003, the Kurdish independence movement recovered its strength. In order to curb the separatism of Kurds and defeat the PKK force, Turkey felt obliged to push its cooperation with Syria. But this cooperation collapsed after the Arab Spring, for the Syria’s policy, disorganizing the rebels by improving the status and rights of Kurds enraged Turkey, made contributions to the breakup of the friendship between the two countries.