An Appraisal of Changing Turkish-Soviet Relations between 1960 and 1971 from a Neoclassical Realist Perspective

Abstract

After the Second World War, Turkey perceived the Soviet Union as a threat to itself. Turkey's relations with the Soviet Union changed between the years 1960-1971. With this change, a multi-dimensional foreign policy period began in Turkish Foreign Policy. Both the international system and domestic factors had an impact on Turkey's transition to multilateralism in foreign policy. The beginning of the softening period in the international system and the isolation of Turkey in the system led to the development of Turkey's relations with the Soviet Union. In addition, the perspective of Turkish political leaders between the years 1960-1971 is another factor that affects Turkey-Soviet relations. In other words, it will not be sufficient to focus only on systemic or only local factors to explain Turkey-Soviet relations. In this context, this study has benefited from neoclassical realism in order to deal with the relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union in a holistic way. According to neoclassical realism, the most important factor affecting the foreign policies of states is the international system. And the international system is treated as an independent variable in the analysis. International systemic stimuli are shaped by intervening variables. The change in Turkish-Soviet relations during the 1960s is the dependent variable of this study. Thus, this thesis argues that as a result of systemic stimuli filtered through domestic factors Turkey and the Soviet Union had formed friendly relations in the 1960s. In this context, in this thesis, first of all, the events in the international system and their effects on the characteristics of the system are discussed. Later, it was divided into periods as the military junta administration, the coalition’s period and finally the Demirel government, and it was revealed how domestic factors affected foreign policy.