German-Turkish Relations during the Modern Period: Military-Political Aspects

Abstract

The modern foreign policies of Germany and Turkey deviate from the traditional model of Western countries' political behavior. It leads to major shifts both in the Euro-Atlantic community and neighboring regions. In this regard it is interesting to explore the relations between the two countries in military-political sphere in the modern period. The paper evaluates the place of Turkey in German foreign policy in the early 2010s and shows the rise in its importance due to the growth of instability in the Middle East. The article pays attention to the dynamics, intermediate results and the most sensitive issues in the bilateral cooperation in the Syrian conflict regulation, as well as to Germany's steps in the direction of establishing and ending its military presence in Turkey in 2013–2017. In this regard special attention is paid to the withdrawal of German soldiers from NATO Air base in Turkey Incirlik as indicator of deterioration of bilateral relations. The paper adduces the reasons of these decisions and their consequences. The research paper investigates Germany's assistance to Kurdish self-defense forces in Northern Syria and Northern Iraq and also to Iraq's central government in Baghdad in the light of Turkish interests in the region. The paper discusses the diplomatic component of German-Turkish cooperation on the “Syrian question”. In this regard the article explores the features of the support by each country of Syrian oppsition during different periods of conflict. The author tries to show the political contours of the relations between Germany and Turkey in the security sphere. In this connection the more important fact is the growing distance between Turkey and the EU. The article pays special attention to the features of the dialogue between the two countries within NATO. The work traces the reduction in the volume and quality of militarytechnical cooperation be-tween Germany and Turkey and determines its key reasons in the 2010s. The article concludes about the character and future direction of the key tracks of German-Turkish cooperation in the sphere of international security.