In the second half of 2023, the Palestinian cause took over Turkish foreign policy as it did the international stage and Ankara stepped up its diplomatic efforts to help strike a permanent cease-fire in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Turkish diplomatic contacts picked up in the latter half of the year regarding the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and its repercussions, Sweden’s NATO membership bid, and the long-awaited rapprochement with Greece.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan alone, who was appointed in June, traveled a total of 212,950 kilometers (132,320 miles) for his diplomatic engagements abroad, ranging from bilateral meetings to peace summits and conferences in 2023, according to data compiled from state and media sources.
Since the beginning of the conflict in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, Ankara has devoted a significant part of its efforts to stopping Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave and achieving lasting peace.
Emphasizing the necessity of a cease-fire and two-state solution in his bilateral meetings, Fidan drew attention to his international initiatives with counterparts in the Contact Group, formed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Arab League.
The group, made up of officials from Türkiye, Palestine, Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, aims to mobilize the international community by initiating the solution process as soon as possible and stopping the bloodshed in Gaza.
As part of the delegation, Fidan visited London, Paris, New York, Washington, Ottawa and Oslo.
Fidan also raised Türkiye’s proposal for a guarantor system to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for the first time during the extraordinary OIC meeting in Jeddah on Oct. 18.
"Türkiye believes a new guarantee mechanism should be designed and implemented. Muslim countries in the region should ensure the well-being and survival of the Palestinian people and act as guarantors of a lasting peace,” he told the meeting.
He repeatedly expressed Türkiye’s readiness to take steps for such a mechanism.
Throughout October, Fidan discussed Palestinian issues with Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his Emirati and Qatari counterparts, and Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lökke Rasmussen.
Fidan also met counterparts from the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) members in November and emphasized regional cooperation for the Palestinian issue.
When he received U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ankara on Nov. 6 for a brief albeit lukewarm meeting, Fidan told Blinken that "Israel should be prevented from targeting civilians in Gaza and a full cease-fire should be declared immediately."
According to diplomatic sources, Türkiye and the U.S. agreed on the need to prevent Gazan civilians from being harmed and to provide humanitarian aid. They highlighted a two-state solution at the meeting.
As 2023 closes, Washington was still opposed to calling for a cease-fire, and Biden’s administration sent another shipment of ammunition to Israel.
Sweden’s NATO application came to the fore in the second half of 2023, especially after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dropped his objections to the Nordic country’s membership at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.
In the leadup to the summit, Fidan stressed the importance of NATO members, potential or certified, taking a “firm stance against terrorism” in talks with NATO, U.S. and Swedish officials.
Following the trilateral meeting held in Vilnius on the summit's margins, Türkiye announced it would forward Sweden's NATO Accession Protocols to Parliament and cooperate closely for its approval.
Sweden, in turn, said it would actively support Türkiye's membership process to the European Union, including updating the customs union and visa liberalization.
Fidan followed up on the decisions taken at the NATO Leaders’ Summit and recent developments in Afghanistan with Blinken during the 57th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta.
Fidan extensively discussed anti-Muslim sentiments and, subsequently, the rising trend of hate crime in Europe with his Iraqi, Saudi Arabian and Egyptian counterparts in July.
He urged the mobilization of the OIC to take joint measures regarding the issue, saying, "We think that unless the Islamic world puts an organized reaction to this issue (attacks on the Holy Quran), there will be no awareness in Western countries.”
On irregular migration, he underlined the importance of regional cooperation against the common challenge as he attended the International Development and Migration Conference held in Rome on July 23 by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
When he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Ankara on July 26, Fidan discussed the intensification of economic and commercial relations, harmonization of the Belt and Road and Middle Corridor initiatives, as well as nuclear energy, agriculture, civil aviation, culture, tourism issues and the developments regarding Uyghur Turks in China.
In August, Fidan condemned the intervention of U.N. peacekeepers in constructing a road in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which led to a brief strain between Turkish Cyprus and the world body on the divided island.
"The U.N. has lost neutrality in this incident,” he said. “We fully support the rightful position of the TRNC."
Two months into his tenure, Fidan traveled to both Kyiv and Moscow to meet his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts.
In Kyiv, he reiterated Türkiye's support for Ukraine's territorial integrity at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba. He said that they wanted to continue economic relations with Ukraine without any damage despite the war.
In Moscow, he sought to persuade Russia to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative with a new proposal prepared by the U.N. with Türkiye’s contributions.
In September, Fidan was in Tehran to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
“Ensuring peace and stability in Kirkuk directly influences peace and stability in Iraq and ensures its territorial integrity,” he said, referring to the presence of the PKK terrorists in Iraq’s northern regions close to the Turkish border.
He once again urged Tehran to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group and cooperate with Ankara in eradicating it.
Ahead of Erdoğan’s landmark visit to Athens two months later, Fidan came together with Greek Foreign Minister Yorgos Yerapetritis several times, reiterating his willingness to “continue the dialogue with our neighbor Greece without any preconditions and to develop our relations in all fields based on common interests.”
Also in September, Fidan held a news conference with European Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and said Türkiye “expects the EU not to tolerate political obstructions.”
“We want them to display the necessary will and act more courageously for the progress of our relations,” he noted.
Fidan also hosted British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in Ankara on Sept. 13 and acknowledged Britain as “one of Türkiye's leading partners in Europe” and “an important NATO ally.”
In the wake of a PKK attack on a Turkish police headquarters in Ankara on Oct. 1, in which two officers were injured, Fidan held a phone call with Blinken and emphasized in strong terms that the Washington administration should stop working with the terrorist organization YPG, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot.
