Is Turkey shifting away from the West?

Though almost 10 days passed over, repercussions of the tension between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos still continue.

Televisions in particular are almost every night hosting guest commentators to have their views on the Gaza panel held at Davos.

Apparently the eventful panel will be echoed both in Turkey and the Middle East for a while.

ErdoÄŸan, in the meantime, talks about the Davos incident whenever he can.

A few days ago Mr. Prime Minister in his party’s parliamentary group meeting said: "A moderator directing an international panel cannot put his arm on a prime minister’s shoulder. This is rudeness. If I hadn’t been diplomatic at the panel, I would’ve done something else but I didn’t."

Debates over the Davos incident in Turkey is just one dimension of the issue.Â

On other dimension, there are questions like "Is Turkey growing away from the West?" asked by international community.

Turkey should make up its mind
We, as press members, for some time keep receiving questions such as "Turkey should make up its mind. Do you want the European Union? Or do you have other alternatives? You better decide this."

I heard the last similar one from the Italian Senate Member Emma Bonino who is also the member of the Independent Commission on Turkey, during a visit to Istanbul as a guest of the Open Society Institute among others.

However, it is a fact that the question "Is Turkey shifting away from the West?" after the Davos panel had a great deal of repercussions.

For instance, the Newsweek magazine in its last issue published an analysis titled "Turkey’s new tilt."

"But after Israel's Gaza campaign, Turkey is taking a strong anti-Israel and anti-Western stance," reads the article.

The magazine asking, "Is Turkey shifting away from the United States and Israel, and toward Arab radicals?" brings the remark, "We have more than one dimension in our foreign policy," by Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu , who is the one considerably shaping up Turkish foreign policy, to the attention.

An integrated strategy
At this point, I just want to talk about Mr. DavutoÄŸlu because accompanied ErdoÄŸan to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos DavutoÄŸlu clarified this "multidimensional foreign policy," in an interview to the New Perspectives Quarterly-Turkey magazine.

Although his answers to the magazine a few months before the Gaza offensive and the eventful Davos panel, but still they are extremely critical.

Davutoğlu outlines Turkey’s foreign policy as "We have a strategy and this is an integrated strategy. Turkey’s relation with global actors is not a zero sum."

Then he explains, "I mean Turkey’s relation with NATO and United States is not an alternative to the EU. The relation we have with Russia is not an alternative to the EU. And the EU is not alternative to Russia. Our relation with China is not an alternative to the relation we have with Russia. We see all of these into a single strategic picture."

Davutoğlu terms Turkey’s relations with the Middle East as "a proactive diplomacy in the region."

"If you seem to be active in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in the Caucasus, that connects you to Europe on one side and to Asia on the other," he adds.

I wouldn’t know if Bonino could be satisfied by his remarks.