Change and Leadership in Foreign Policy: The Case of Turgut Ozal's Premiership in Turkey, 1983-1989

The literature on Turkish foreign policy revolves around the argument that it departed from its traditional course during the Turgut Ozal period spanning from 1983-93. The literature focuses primarily on Ozal's presidency and examines his policies during the Gulf Crisis, along with his initiatives in dealing with the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia in the post - Cold War period, while putting forward the major-change argument. Nur Bilge Criss and Pinar Bilgin have criticized this literature by contending that the logic behind the arguments that Turkish foreign policy changed in the early 1990s is based on implicit neo-realist assumptions, which led many authors to assume foreign policy behavior is responsive to changes in the external environment.