Under the AKP government,
Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Western Balkans, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
in particular, has led many analysts to suspect it of possessing neo-imperial, or
so-called neo-Ottoman, objectives. These suspicions have been compounded by the
repeated declarations of former Prime Minister Davutoğlu and current President
Erdoğan that the history and religious identity shared by Turks and Western
Balkan Muslims forms the basis of both Turkish-Balkan relations and a common
future. Critical examination of official Ankara’s attitudes toward the Western
Balkans in general, and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, identifies four
distinct phases in which cultural, historical, and religious appeals morphed
into the set of distinctive foreign policies. These policies have also been
shaped by pragmatic pursuits of regional influence, the effects of internal (Turkish)
transformations, and more recently, the ad hoc policies of President Erdoğan. This article will reconstruct
the development of Turkish foreign policy since 1990, from multilateral and
soft power efforts to religious and economic objectives, and will analyse the
limits of this policy.
Since Bosnia and Herzegovina’s declaration of independence in 1995, its path has been a rocky one. Unwillingness by the international community to stand by the central government and stand in the way of the neighboring states of Serbia and Croatia’s territorial pretensions, produced a succession of ceasefire agreements, culminating in the final, Dayton Peace Agreement. Each of these agreements espoused the ethnic principle as the guiding philosophy for the organization of the state. The post-war period demonstrates that despite the passage of time, the principle of organization of multi-ethnic state along ethnic lines presents a stumbling block to the functioning of the political, economic and social life in the country. The political history of post-independence Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) therefore reads as a history of protracted political paralysis, with no hope of rectifying the problems without another forceful intervention of the international community.
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