THE ARAB SPRING AND ITS IMPACT ON TURKEY-GCC STATES PARTNERSHIP

With the beginning of the 21st century, style and substance of Turkish foreign policy changed to a large extent. Th e most important one was the fact that Ankara started to follow “security building” rather than “desecuritization” policies towards her neighbors. In this context, the mottos adopted by the Özal Administration such as “less geopolitics, more economics” or “trade but not aid” depicted Turkey's such policies very well. Turkey's relations with the GCC states improved against this background. Th is article, after giving a short historical past of the bilateral relations, will focus on the reasons for improving relations between both sides with beginning of the 2000s. Second aim of the article is to analyze whether Turkey's improving relations with Iran had a negative impact on Turkey GCC States especially after the outburst of the Arab spring. Lastly, the evaluation of the impact of Turkey's policies towards the revolts in Egypt, Libya and Syria on Turkey-GCC states relations will be another concern of the study.