ИСТИНА

The paper explores Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East through the prism of security community concept. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has never been a showcase for a classical security community framework. Moreover, the differences of political regimes and foreign policy orientations have made it a hotbed of domestic and regional conflicts with broad international involvement. In the early 21st century these conflicting regional relations have entered a qualitatively new phase, which can be characterized as competitive multipolarity. The shifting balance of powers at the global level has modified the patterns of great powers’ involvement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The regional level has been witnessing a recalibration of relations between the main regional actors (Turkey, Iran, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia). At the same time the evolving interrelation between foreign and domestic policy imperatives of these main actors resulted in a different type of their foreign policy behavior. Consequently, as this paper argues, Turkey has turned out to become a controversial regional power, which in some respects tries to act as a regional stability maker but at the same time creates new regional disruptions.