Turkey plays a critical role in U.S. foreign policy

Despite a prickly relationship between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel remains a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Almost as critical to the entire U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the direction of the Islamic world, is Turkey. The relationship with Turkey is going to require deft handling by the United States in the rocky months and years ahead.

Turkey is the successful example of a non-Arab land where Islam and democracy co-exist and the economy prospers. Indonesia, the largest Islamic, but non-Arab, country in the world, is another such example that could play a constructive role in tempering Islamic extremism in the Arab world. But Indonesia lies in distant Southeast Asia, whereas Turkey is in and of the Middle East, with adjacent Arab neighbors.

Turkey has long been seen as a land-bridge between East and West. For decades it has looked westward to Europe. In recent times, it has been refurbishing its ties with countries that border it, like Iran, Iraq and Syria. It has planned to launch its own Arabic-language satellite TV station in order to connect more intimately with the Arab world.

This new relationship was certainly accelerated by the opposition of some European countries to Turkey's admission to the European Union. The opponents argued that Turkey is not a European power.

But in major part the new realignment is because Turkey's new foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, a former professor of international relations, believes in a policy of "zero problems with neighbors." As an example of this philosophy, Turkey ended a 16-year freeze in relations with Armenia. Turkey has also granted more cultural and political rights to its 14-million-strong Kurdish minority in a bid to erase tensions not only with them but with Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Relations between Turkey and the United States dipped in 2003 when the Turkish parliament refused to permit transit of American troops through Turkey to open a second front in the war with Iraq. With the election of Obama to the American presidency, and his early visit to Turkey for a key outreach speech to the Muslim world, the relationship regained warmth. Obama termed Turkey a "critical" ally, declared that the United States was "not at war with Islam" and concluded his speech in parliament by kissing Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on both cheeks. U.S. support for Turkey's bid for membership in the European Union also did not hurt.