The wreckage inherited from 2016 in the EU and the US

We wanted to begin by wishing that the new year be a more just one, a year in which peace is established more widely across the world. However, Turkey, perhaps the country closest to defending and realizing both justice and peace at the same time, was subjected in the first hours of the new year to a savage terror attack that surpassed itself in every respect.

To be realistic, the year 2017 has inherited from 2016 a large number of problems that remain unresolved on a global scale and have deepened. It is a bitter but true fact that the international system lacks the necessary instruments and institutions to find a just solution to these problems at the global level. Our President has said on every occasion, at the highest pitch, that the current structure of the UN makes it difficult to intervene and establish peace in humanitarian crises and in situations where global peace and security are endangered, and that the seats on the UN Security Council are distributed unjustly.

The sentence "The World Is Bigger Than Five" is not a simple and utopian slogan; it is a truth that expresses the realities and feelings of the unhappy majority dissatisfied with the system's balance and the partiality of its law, and that will sooner or later find its counterpart in the years ahead.

Looking at the current problems in international relations, it is easy to see that these problems cannot be overcome with the current structure of the UN system. We have seen by experience that no solution to the Syrian crisis, which is about to complete its sixth year, could be found within the UN order, and that finding one is impossible.

Moreover, the crises continuing in problem areas such as Libya and Yemen, where a solution was thought to have been found within the UN order, show very clearly that the solutions the system produces for problems are neither commensurate with capacities nor lasting.

One of the main topics of 2017 can be expected to be the debates about division within the EU. The tying of the Brexit vote in Britain to Parliament's decision process, US President-elect Trump's scolding of his European allies by demanding a fair sharing of defense costs in NATO, the concern that the weight of Germany and France in Europe will grow because of Brexit, and the debate over how physical security in Europe will be ensured all seem likely to flare up again. On the other hand, the far-right parties and coalitions that are on the rise in European countries and openly express the demand to take back their nation-states may also bring with them an atmosphere in which the future of the EU is loudly debated.

Afghanistan and Iraq will continue to be subjects of debate in the new year too. Of course, it must not be forgotten that a rather fragile situation has also emerged in Ukraine.

So, in a world that will see such deep fault lines and sharp debates, how will Turkish foreign policy take shape?

Let us begin first with relations with the EU. The history of Turkey-EU relations is quite old. As many researchers have said, just as it is impossible to write the history of Europe without Turkey, it is impossible to write Turkish history without Europe. But a middle path that would institutionalize these relations had not been built historically. The possibility of bringing a certain stability to Turkey-EU relations, which have a graph of ups and downs, arose for the first time during the AK Parti government. Because of the AK Parti government's resolute steps toward EU membership, the EU decided in 2004 to set a timetable for full membership for Turkey.

However, the timetable given was constantly updated by the EU itself. Conditions put forward in no other full-membership negotiation were put forward against Turkey. The EU not only failed to abide by "pacta sunt servanda" (keeping one's word), one of the most basic rules of international relations, but changed matters that had been negotiated and settled while the process was under way. In other words, the rules set before the game began were constantly changed to the detriment of one side.

EU leaders coded Turkey as an other in their election campaigns, appealing to the remnants of the medieval mentality in Europe, and were rather successful at it. That being so, the attitude of turning Turkey into negative material for a political discourse spread, including to centrist and leftist parties. Despite this, Turkey continued its relations with the EU as a sign of goodwill. However, relations with the EU seem to have entered the final stretch. In this respect 2017 may be a year of rupture.

Turkey is certainly experiencing a crisis of confidence with the US, another important actor in its Transatlantic relations. US officials were unable to give a satisfactory explanation of the role of the US and NATO in the July 15 coup attempt. Their constant excuses and their watering down of the process regarding the extradition of the FETÖ leader, the ringleader of the coup, drew the reaction of public opinion in Turkey. More importantly, in 2016, regarding the terror rising steadily inside Turkey, the US, Turkey's ally, pursued policies incompatible with the law of alliance. Backing the PYD-YPG, the Syrian extension of the terrorist organization PKK, in every way deepened the crisis of confidence in bilateral relations.

With Trump taking office, the activation of policies that will cure this crisis of confidence may create new possibilities of cooperation between Turkey and the US. In this respect 2017 will be a test year. If the information circulating behind the scenes is true, the Trump administration's priority policy on Turkey will be to persuade Turkey to accept the support of the PYD-YPG, while taking Turkey's reservations into account. Frankly, it is hard to say that such an approach would be a new policy. If Trump, who has inherited a wreck in the Middle East from the Obama administration, continues the policy of supporting one terrorist organization to fight another, he will take his place among the US presidents of ill repute before 2017 is over.

However, if Trump joins the regional cooperation developed by Turkey and Russia and embraces a perspective that takes into account the territorial integrity of the countries of the region and fights every kind of terrorist organization, he may go down in history as the US president who contributed to the solution of the Syrian crisis. Even though what he said about the Palestinian-Israeli issue before taking the presidential seat is disturbing and dangerous.