Foreign relations of Turkey refers to the diplomatic and trade ties between Turkey and other nations.Robins, Philip. Turkey and the Middle East. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs and New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991. As of December 2024, Turkey maintains diplomatic relations with 189 member states of the United Nations.

Prior to declaring war against the Axis powers on February 23, 1945,Çağlar, İsmail, and Kevser Hülya Akdemir. "Turkey and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization." Turkey and Transatlantic Relations. Washington DC: Centre for Transatlantic Relations (2017): 35-48. https://archive.transatlanticrelations.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ch03-1.pdf Turkey's primary ally had been the United States, with both countries aiming to contain Soviet expansion.Migdalovitz, Carol. "Turkey: Ally in a Troubled Region." Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 93-835F. Washington: 14 September 1993.Karasapan, Omer. "Turkey and US Strategy in the Age of Glasnost," Middle East Report, No. 160, September–October 1989, pp. 4–10, 22. In support of the United Nations, Turkey contributed personnel to the Korean War in 1950 and joined NATO in 1952.Aybet, Gülnur. Turkey's Foreign Policy and Its Implications for the West: A Turkish Perspective. London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1994.

Turkey's relations with the Arab World and Iran have been strained due to its recognition of Israel in 1949 and its alliance with Israel during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Fuller, Graham E., Ian O. Lesser, Paul B. Henze, and J.F. Brown. Turkey's New Geopolitics: From the Balkans to Western China. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993. This subsequently led to overt Syrian support for Palestinian and Armenian militant operations against Turkish diplomats abroad until 1990.United States. Department of Defense. Terrorist Group Profiles. Washington: GPO, 1988.United States. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1992. Washington: 1993.United States. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism 1993. Washington: 1994.

As of 2026 Turkey's foreign policy is marked by strategic autonomy in an era of multipolarity. Turkey in a NATO member, and at the same time maintains beneficial strategic relation with the Russian-Chinese axis.

History Historically, the foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey balanced regional and global powers against one another, forming alliances that best protected the interests of the incumbent regime.William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy Since 1774 (Routledge, 2012). The Soviet Union played a major role in supplying weapons and financing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's faction during the Turkish War of Independence, but Turkey followed a course of relative international isolation during the period of Atatürk's reforms in the 1920s and 1930s. International conferences gave Turkey full control of the strategic straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean through the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and the Montreux Convention of 1936.J.M. Hakov, "The Great States, Turkey and Issue Concerning the New Regime of the Straits during the First Years of World War Two." Archiv Orientální 54 (1986): 47–60.

In the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made a major effort to promote anti-Soviet propaganda in Turkey. In response, Britain and France negotiated a tripartite treaty with Turkey in 1939 in which they gave Turkey a line of credit to purchase war materials from the West and a loan to facilitate the purchase of commodities.Yücel Güçlü, "Turco-British relations on the eve of the Second World War." Middle Eastern Studies 39.4 (2003): 159–205. After threats from Germany and the Soviet Union, Turkey maintained neutrality.Onur Isci, "The Massigli Affair and its Context: Turkish Foreign Policy after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact." Journal of Contemporary History (2019): DOI: 10.1177/0022009419833443. online It sold chrome—an important war material—to both sides, but by 1944, as the eventuality of German defeat grew more evident, chrome sales to Germany halted.Gül İnanç, "The politics of 'active neutrality' on the eve of a new world order: The case of Turkish chrome sales during the Second World War." Middle Eastern Studies 42.6 (2006): 907–915.S. Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An 'Active' Neutrality (Cambridge 1989).N. Tamkin, Britain, Turkey and the Soviet Union, 1940–1945 (London 2009).

After 1945

Turkey became one of the early members of the Council of Europe in 1950. Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, joined the European Union Customs Union in 1995, and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. In a non-binding vote on 13 March 2019, the European Parliament called on the EU governments to suspend EU accession talks with Turkey, citing violations of human rights and the rule of law. The negotiations, which have been effectively on hold since 2018, remain active as of 2025.

According to the United States government, the other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign policy has been the country's long-standing strategic alliance with the United States. The Truman Doctrine in 1947 enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece during the Cold War, and resulted in large-scale U.S. military and economic support to the countries. In 1948, both Turkey and Greece were included in the Marshall Plan and the OEEC for rebuilding European economies.

Turkey joined NATO in 1952, strengthening its bilateral ties with the United States. In the following decades, Turkey benefited from American political, economic, and diplomatic support—particularly on critical issues such as its longstanding bid for European Union membership. In the post–Cold War era, Turkey's geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans.

The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural, historic and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia. The International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY) was established in 1993, and the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) was established in 2009. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline that extends from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey, is a part of Turkey's foreign policy goal to become an energy conduit from the Caspian Sea basin to Europe. Turkey sealed its land border with Armenia in a gesture of support to Azerbaijan (a Turkic state in the Caucasus region) during the First (1993) and Second (2020) Nagorno-Karabakh Wars. The border remains closed as of 2025, opening only twice to allow aid to pass through. In 2022, Armenia and Turkey started diplomatic talks to normalize the relationship between the two countries. Turkey and Armenia have also restarted commercial flights between the two countries.

Under the AKP government (2002–present), Turkey's economy has increased rapidly and the country's influence has expanded in the Middle East based on a strategic depth doctrine, though this doctrine has been accused of Neo-Ottomanism. Debate on Turkey's foreign relations is controversial both within Turkey and internationally. In the West, there exists a divide between those who are worried about Turkey's perceived movement away from the West toward a less democratic, more Islamic or more pro-Russian and pro-Chinese orientation and those who do not see Turkey's changing political structure, growing regional power, and diversification of relations with countries such as Russia as a threat.Kubilay Yado Arin: The AKP's Foreign Policy, Turkey's Reorientation from the West to the East? Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2013. . Relations with the European Union

On 14 April 1987, Turkey applied for membership to the European Economic Community (now the European Union). On 12 December 1999, at the Helsinki Summit, the European Council gives Turkey the status of candidate country for EU membership, following the Commission's recommendation in its second Regular Report on Turkey. On 3 August 2002, The Turkish parliament abolished the death penalty to pave the way for the start of EU accession negotiations. On 16 December 2004, the European Council decides to start accession negotiations for Turkey to become a full member of the European Union. On 3 October 2005, the European Union decided to officially open accession negotiations with Turkey. On 24 November 2016, the European Parliament votes to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey over human rights and rule of law concerns. On 25 April 2017, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) unanimously adopted a call to place Turkey back under monitoring due to setbacks in democracy, human rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and judicial independence. Turkey last officially exited the monitoring process in 2004 when it began accession negotiations with the European Union. On 26 June 2018, the EU's General Affairs Council stated that "the Council notes that Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey's accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen." The Council added that it is "especially concerned about the continuing and deeply worrying backsliding on the rule of law and on fundamental rights including the freedom of expression." On 19 May 2021, the European Parliament unanimously accepted the call for the suspension of accession negotiations between the European Union and Turkey. While Turkey officially has diplomatic relations with 26 EU member states, it does not have diplomatic relations with 1 EU member state (Cyprus).

Diplomatic relations Despite being one of the first countries to recognize Armenia's independence, Turkey has never established formal diplomatic relations with it. Turkey formerly maintained diplomatic relations with Cyprus and Taiwan.

List of countries with which Turkey maintains diplomatic relations: #CountryDate123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475—— (suspended)767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136 137138139140141142143144145146147—148149150151152153—154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184—185186187—188189190—"Joint Declaration concerning the establishment of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Niue, ...were signed."

Bilateral relations Multilateral Organization Formal Relations BeganNotesSeptember 1963See European Union–Turkey relations and Accession of Turkey to the European Union February 1952 See Turkey in NATO

Africa