Document Type : Research Paper

Abstract

Coming to power of the modernist disciples of Arbakan 's political school under the guise of  Justice and Development Party (JDP) in 2002 elections, ushered a new political revival in Turkey. The formulation of Strategic Depth Doctrine by Ahmet Davutoğlu, as the architect of the Turkey 's new foreign policy, led to radical changes in its foreign relations. Ameliorating relations between Turkey and the Russian Federation are among these developments, which is unprecedented during the 500 years history of fragile relations between the two countries. Based on the Constructivist theory, this article, tries to answer the question that what are the motives for amelioration of Moscow-Ankara relations despite their old mutual misunderstanding? And what are the manifestation of this change in different fields? According to the main hypothesis, “the shift in the attitude of Turkey 's new political elite towards foreign policy, has transformed Turkish foreign policy and created radical changes in its relations with the Russian Federation”. In order to answer the aforementioned questions and testing the hypothesis, this article first reviews the Constructivist theory and its linkage with foreign policy and then while studding approaches adopted by Justice and Development Party in the field of foreign policy and comparison  adoption with the main assumption of the constructivist theory, explores the shift in Moscow-Ankara relations in the four areas: political, security and defense, economic, social-cultural, as well as the impacts of Georgia’s August 2008 crisis on the relations between the two countries.