Qatar–Turkey Rapprochement: Challenging the Regional Status Quo in the Gulf Security Sub-complex

Abstract

With the election of the Justice and Development Party (JDP hereafter) 1 and Qatar's leadership change in 1995, there is no doubt that interactions between Turkey and Qatar have gained pace. The Turkey-Qatar alliance reached a new high after the Arab Spring, with these two countries emerging as two pro-revolutionary states that are disturbing the status quo in the Middle East. The ties established between Turkey and Qatar have continued even after the Arab uprisings: Turkey stood by Qatar during the 2017-18 diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain. Similarly, Qatar supported Turkey financially after the devastating currency crisis in August 2018. Moreover, Turkey has established a military base in Qatar, which is of critical significance in the history of Turkish foreign policy. Therefore, one can safely argue that Turkey and Qatar have formed an alliance based on their diverse military and economic needs.This analysis argues that Turkey and Qatar sought to change the regional status quo in order to forge a new regional security order. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, Turkey and Qatar cemented an alliance based on their diverse qualities as military and financial powers respectively. Nevertheless, the fundamental cause of the Turkish-Qatari alliance in challenging the regional status quo lies not only in concerns related to their security or power-seeking behavior, but also in certain shared values and common visions based on their ideas and identities. Therefore, it can be claimed that the transformation in the domestic politics of these states played a decisive role in shaping the Turkey-Qatar alliance, which in turn has had a major impact on the regional mosaic in the Middle East. In a nutshell, this paper contends that the Gulf security sub-complex was reshaped in the wake of the Arab uprisings, notably through the emergence of Turkey and Qatar as revisionist states. Accordingly, it