page_title: Ahmet Davutoğlu
section_title: Foreign policy ideals
hierarchical_section_title: Ahmet Davutoğlu / Foreign policy ideals
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (L), Secretary-General of OIC Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (2nd L), Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (3rd L) and EU High Representative Catherine Ashton (4th L) participate in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Conference on “Building on the Consensus” at the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 15, 2011. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
context_page_description: Ahmet Davutoğlu is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey and Leader of the Justice and Development Party from 2014 to 2016. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2014 and chief advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2003 to 2009. He was elected as an AKP Member of Parliament for Konya in the 2011 general election and was reelected as an MP in both the June and November 2015 general elections. He resigned as Prime Minister on 22 May 2016.
  Following the election of serving Prime Minister and AKP Leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the 12th President of Turkey, Davutoğlu was announced by the AKP Central Executive Committee as a candidate for the party leadership. He was unanimously elected as leader during the first AKP extraordinary congress and consequently succeeded Erdoğan as prime minister, forming the 62nd Government of the Turkish Republic. His cabinet was dominated by Erdoğan's close allies such as Yalçın Akdoğan; this led to speculation that he would take a docile approach as prime minister while Erdoğan continued to pursue his own political agenda as president.
context_section_description: From his articles for Yeni Şafak and book Stratejik Derinlik, academics and politicians have put forward the view that Davutoğlu's foreign policy vision rests on rebuilding and maintaining closer relations with former territories of the Ottoman Empire through a policy known as Neo-Ottomanism. Davutoğlu's professor and close adviser of former President Turgut Özal, Greek geopolitician Dimitri Kitsikis is considered in fact to have had a decisive influence, precisely on this geopolitical theory.
  Another theory developed by Davutoğlu's former student Behlül Özkan is that Davutoğlu has a Pan-Islamist foreign policy ideal, in which he sees Islam as a unifying factor within the Middle East. Similarly, in their article, Ahmet Erdi Öztürk and Semiha Sözeri noted that Davutoğlu is theideational father of pan-Islamic foreign policy doctrine in the contemporary Turkey. In contrast to these theories, Davutoğlu has also in the past also advocated a pro-western policy as a NATO member by expressing support for European Union membership.
caption: Davutoğlu (third left) at the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation Conference in 2011
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