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Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XL, No.1 Fall 2016 Turkey and India: From Distant Acquaintances to Partners in World Politics and Trade Michael B. Bishku* William Hale in his comprehensive work Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 has only one mention of India and it is not in regard to bilateral relations: In the post- [Second World] war world, and faced with the classic choice between alliance and non-alignment, Turkey was almost bound to take the first option. In effect, it was in the same position as most of the medium and small powers of Western Europe, which preferred defensive alliance with the United States to active non-alignment. Unlike say, India, it was in the middle of a zone of intense rivalry between the superpowers , and if unaided, it could not expect to hold off a direct attack by the Warsaw Pact for more than a limited time—especially, if as expected, this was launched against the straits [i.e. Bosporus and Dardanelles].1 Indeed, security was of prime interest to Turkey given common borders with the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. However, this statement alludes to one important reason for the more distant nature of Turkish-Indian relations during the Cold War. In addition, Turkey and India were overwhelmingly concerned about two respective issues—1) the political situation regarding Cyprus and 2) land and political disputes with Pakistan, especially over Kashmir. The ethnic Greek leader and later President of Cyprus from 1960-1977, Archbishop Makarios, was an influential figure in the Non-Aligned Movement, while Pakistan was a member of two Western alliances, one of which together with Turkey—the Baghdad Pact, later 80 *Michael B. Bishku is a Professor of History at Augusta University in Georgia. He is a former President of both the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies and the Association of Third World Studies and an advisory editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online for Islamic Studies. He has published numerous academic articles on the history and politics of the Islamic World and on connections between the Middle East and other regions of the world. 1 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 325-326. 81 known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)—and many Pakistani leaders shared a secular Muslim identity with their Turkish counterparts. Both Turkey and India were (and still are) regional powers, but the former has had more immediate threats historically to its territorial integrity. The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923 out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and its founder Kemal Atatürk saw his country’s future in being associated with Europe and its culture; also, with the exception of Iran its Middle Eastern neighbors were under the control of either Britain or France, with whom (as well as with the Soviet Union) it had good working relations. During the interwar years, Fascist Italy’s interests in the Balkans and Mediterranean Sea presented the greatest security threat and during the Second World War neutrality and Germany overextending itself in its invasion of the Soviet Union provided some sense of protection. India, on the other hand, received its independence from Britain in 1947 with a partition that provided it with greater resources than Pakistan, had no border with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was in no position to present a military challenge until the early 1960s. Later, the post-Cold War era offered both Turkey and India more flexibility regarding foreign relations, while India liberalized its economic policies. However, it was not until Turkey’s Justice and Development (AK) Party came to power in 2002 when that country began to pay greater attention to Asian (and African) countries outside the Middle East. At the same time, both Turkey and India have dealt with their relations and common areas of interest separate from the respective problems associated with either Cyprus or Pakistan. This article examines Turkish-Indian relations since the beginning of the Cold War, a subject that only has been given attention in recent years. Indeed, Prithvi Ram Mudiam’s work India and the Middle East published in 1994 makes...

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