Turkey is pivotal to Europes middleeast policy.Discuss Essay

Turkey is pivotal to Europes middleeast policy.Discuss - Essay Example Presently, Turkey has relationship with most of the states in the Middle East. To illustrate, in 2009, Turkey signed High Level Strategic Cooperation Council agreements with Syria and Iraq. Also, there is a trade and visa free zone covering Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Here, one has to remember the fact that the EU failed to achieve this objective in any of these nations. Also, Turkey strongly opposed the Israeli use of military and expansionist strategies. Presently, Turkey acts as the one and only effective mediator in most of the international and micro-level issues affecting Middle East. It facilitated talks between Israel and Hamas, and West and Iran. In addition were its efforts to increase communication between Syrians and Iraqis. Thus, as Tocci (n.d) points out, turkey has proved that it has the ability to identify, intervene, and mediate micro-crises as it has access to even independent players like Hamas, and hostile players like Iran and Syria, with whom the EU and US have such relations which are marred by distrust; and in total, the future of EU policies in the Middle East will be purely dependent on how things turn out in the hands of Turkey. According to Barysch (2007) of the Centre for European Reform, Turkey has a strategic role in European energy security. This strategic importance of Turkey as an energy hub for the Europe arises from the fact that it enjoys the strategic location of a corridor between Europe and the oil rich Middle East (ibid). Admittedly, Turkey has a rising domestic energy need and is struggling to keep the energy prices down. However, the Europe is panicked by the fact that by the mid of this century, the energy requirement in Europe will rise by 25%. It is highly necessary for the continent to look for more long term energy supply despite the depleting energy sources within the region. Presently, Russia is playing an important role in providing gas to Europe, and according to