Turkey’s Foreign Policy towards the Middle East in the 1950’s and Its Impact On Turco-Arab Relations

Turkey’s Middle Eastern policy was inaugurated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk whose policy reached its zenith with the establishment of the Pact of Sadabad in 1937. Thereafter this political activism in the Middle East was abandoned by forthcoming Turkish leader, President Inonu. Inonu adopted a rather passive policy in the regional affairs in order to follow a balanced policy between Arabs and Jews for geopolitical reasons. When Democrat party came to power in 1950 they re-embarked Turkey’s engagement in the Middle Eastern politics. Their idea was to set up a kind of Arab-NATO under Turkey’s leadership. Their idea was first to revive and develop the Sadabad Pact with which their efforts convert this pact into the Baghdad Pact in 1955. Then their second aim was to secure Western especially American security and economic aid. Apart from security imperatives, they believed that their political activism against to the spread of communism in the Middle East could result western involvement in the regional affairs and hence could result for more economic aid. Though Turkey to a greater extend obtained their economic and political objectives vis a vis the West their policies with the Arab states resulted in a failure. This was because there were fundamental differences in the interests of Turkey and the Arab states. This article is based on abundant archival documents available in Turkey and abroad. It also consulted the available existing literature.