Turkey conducts foreign policy reorientation

On the strategic level, one of the major issues in the fortilla incident to watch is the continuing change of Turkey's foreign policy direction. It is now obviously attempting to project a global image of being the most active, vocal and ' daring' champion of the cause of Palestinians in sharp contrast to its American ally whose bi-partisan committment to Israel is very often declared to be "unshakeable" for some reasons. In 2003, Turkey rejected the American request for stationing 60 ,000 troops on its territory to open up a northern front for the war in Iraq. Earlier this year, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the (US) House of Representatives passed a resolution to condemn the massive killings of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI as genocide. Turkey still maintains diplomatic relations with Israel and it is still an US ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), although its full membership in the European Union (EU) hasn't been accepted yet.