Turks Look Eastward

Image: Taksim Square, Istanbul, 2006

This is an interesting poll, reported in Hürriyet. You can find the story here and the "Transatlantic Trends 2010" poll results here.

This interested me as well:

Turks are not shifting toward the Middle East but want to play a leadership role there without cutting their ties to the Western world, said Serhat Erkmen, a Middle East expert from the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, or ORSAM.

It bears some relation to Ataturk's speech we read, in which Turkey becomes a peer and a modern nation. As a regional power, not as a member of a larger organization, Turkey would come into its own and be respected as a "go to" nation for economic and diplomatic relations with its neighbors more wary of Europe and the United States.