In an election on June 7 that will reshape Turkey’s political system, the governing Justice and Development (AK) Party lost its parliamentary majority. Though the country’s four main political parties are still jockeying over how to form a functioning coalition, it’s clear that the AK Party will no longer enjoy the monopoly on political power it has enjoyed in recent years and that could affect how Turkey deals with the world.
Though some of Turkey’s neighbors—many of whom have grown tired of President Erdogan—will celebrate the end of his party’s majority, the new coalition politics inject great uncertainty into foreign policy. Nearly all of Turkey’s neighbors, from Syria to Greece, Iran to Israel, will find that their relations with Turkey depend on the complicated coalition bargaining that determines the shape of the new government and the approach it might take on foreign relations.
