Ahmet Davutoğlu

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 (AKP) from 2014 to 2016, having previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2014 and chief advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2003 to 2009. ^{1 2}

He is the author of Strategic Depth (2001), a highly influential book in Turkey's foreign-policy orientation, and the architect of the "zero problems with neighbours" approach, described as the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening; he later left the AKP and founded the Future Party in 2019. ¹

Davutoğlu was born on 26 February 1959 in Taşkent, Konya Province; the Arabic article names his father as Duran and his mother as Memnune. ^{1 2} He graduated from Istanbul High School and studied economics and political science at Boğaziçi University in a double-major programme, taking a master's in public administration and a PhD in political science and international relations from the same university. ^{1 2}

From 1990 he taught at the International Islamic University Malaysia, where he founded the political science department and chaired it until 1993; he then worked at Marmara University from 1996 to 1999, wrote weekly columns — more than two hundred articles, per the Arabic article — for the newspaper Yeni Şafak between 1995 and 1999, became a full professor in 1999, and chaired the Department of International Relations at Beykent University in Istanbul, also teaching as a visiting professor at the War Academy and the Armed Forces Academy between 1998 and 2002. ^{1 2} In addition to his native Turkish he speaks German, English, Arabic and Malay. ¹

Davutoğlu was granted the title of ambassador on 17 January 2003 by the joint decision of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Abdullah Gül, and became Erdoğan's chief foreign policy advisor, developing the outlook that would bring Turkey to play a larger role in the Middle East and co-ordinating Turkish responses to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. ^{1 2}

In his Yeni Şafak articles and his book Strategic Depth he argued for Turkey to become more than a regional power, rebuilding and maintaining closer relations with the former territories of the Ottoman Empire. ¹ Foreign Policy magazine listed him among its "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2010" for "being the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening", and in 2011 listed him together with Erdoğan for "imagining a new role for Turkey in the world — and making it happen". ¹

Erdoğan appointed Davutoğlu Minister of Foreign Affairs on 1 May 2009 despite his not being a member of parliament; he was elected MP for Konya in 2011 and continued as foreign minister in Erdoğan's third cabinet. ^{1 2}

In 2010 he set out four pillars of his foreign policy — the indivisibility of security, dialogue, economic interdependence, and cultural harmony and mutual respect — and said of the "Zero Problems Policy" that "it is possible to have zero problems if the other actors respect our values", adding that this did not mean silence for the sake of good relations. ¹

Later analyses of his term in 2013 and 2014 were significantly more negative: his failures were associated mostly with Turkey's policy on the Syrian Civil War, attempts to increase influence over former Ottoman states and his stance against Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and most criticism was directed at his policy on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Turkey's refusal to help Kurdish fighters retake Kobani in 2014; a July 2014 opinion poll placed support for his foreign policy at 28.0% against 57.7% disapproval. ¹

This section should be read as a presentation of analyses reported in the sources, not as the museum's verdict on them.

Neo-Ottomanism: Western and especially US media linked Davutoğlu to Turkish neo-Ottomanism, a characterisation he does not accept; he told the daily Sabah that "as much as we don't use this conceptualization, the fact that it is being used against us is either because of misunderstanding or lack of goodwill", denied that Turkey sought a neo-Ottoman imperial order, and argued that Turkey as a nation-state is equal with any other in its region and seeks to contribute to a permanent peace. ¹

The pan-Islamist reading: His former student Behlül Özkan, researching some 300 articles Davutoğlu wrote between 1990 and 2000, concluded that he holds pan-Islamic notions rather than neo-Ottoman ones — that only Islam, the one thing the peoples of the Middle East share, can unify the region — and wrote that since Davutoğlu is a Sunni Muslim, Iran is not part of his plans for a united Middle East, and that he does not believe in the European Union and instead wants an Islamic Union. ¹ His foreign policy has also been called Muslim Brotherhood-inspired transnationalism, for example by CHP MP Aykut Erdemir; after the overthrow of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 Turkey was seen as the Brotherhood's last friendly country in the region, and Istanbul hosted two meetings of the organisation, for which Davutoğlu faced criticism for damaging ties with el-Sisi's government. ¹

Against these readings, Davutoğlu also advocated a pro-Western policy as a NATO member and made Turkey's accession to the European Union a strategic target of his government, claiming at the 51st Association Council meeting in Brussels in May 2013 that Turkey had aimed for membership for 50 years and would continue to do so. ¹

Following Erdoğan's election as president, Davutoğlu was unanimously elected AKP leader at the party's first extraordinary congress on 27 August 2014, taking 1,382 votes, and became the 26th prime minister on 29 August 2014, forming the 62nd government; his cabinet was dominated by Erdoğan's close allies such as Yalçın Akdoğan, fuelling speculation that he would take a docile approach while Erdoğan pursued his own agenda as president. ^{1 2}

In the June 2015 general election the AKP lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, with 40.87% of the vote; after unsuccessful coalition negotiations Davutoğlu formed Turkey's first-ever interim election government, and the AKP regained its majority in the November 2015 snap election with 49.4% of the vote, per the Arabic article, after which he formed his third government. ^{1 2}

His administration oversaw an escalation of conflict with the PKK after a two-year ceasefire broke down in mid-2015, with his premiership described as the "bloodiest" in Turkey's history; after a suicide bombing killed 32 people in Suruç, his government authorised airstrikes on 20 July against both PKK and ISIL positions, drawing sustained criticism from allies such as the United States over Turkey's lack of action against ISIL, while the opposition accused him of sparking the conflict deliberately to win back votes. ¹

Relations between Davutoğlu and Erdoğan deteriorated over parliamentary candidate lists, government policy and the implementation of an executive presidential system; in late April 2016 the anonymous "Pelican files", produced by Erdoğan supporters, detailed 27 sources of disagreement, and the party's Central Executive Decision Committee voted to strip the leader of the power to appoint provincial and district executives. ¹ After a meeting with Erdoğan on 4 May 2016 lasting an hour and forty minutes, Davutoğlu announced the next day that an extraordinary congress would be held on 22 May and that he would not stand, stating that his resignation had not arisen out of choice but had become a necessity; he was succeeded by Binali Yıldırım. ¹

The opposition CHP called the resignation the "4 May Palace Coup", claiming Erdoğan had toppled a prime minister elected for four years just seven months before with 49.5% of the vote; the White House said it expected no change in Turkish-American relations and called Davutoğlu a "good ally"; and the Turkish lira fell sharply after the announcement. ¹

In September 2019 Davutoğlu resigned from the AKP, accusing his former party of no longer being able to provide solutions for Turkey, and on 12 December 2019 he launched the Future Party (Gelecek Partisi) and became its first leader — a right-conservative party advocating a return to the parliamentary system and a new constitution, which later joined the opposition Nation Alliance against the AKP and Erdoğan. ¹ The English article further reports that on 29 July 2026 Davutoğlu said the Future Party would be dissolved and that he would exit politics. ¹

His English-language books are Alternative Paradigms: The Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory (1993) and Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World (1994). ¹ His Turkish works include Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth, 2001), Küresel Bunalım (The Global Crisis, 2002) and Osmanlı Medeniyeti: Siyaset İktisat Sanat (Ottoman Civilization: Politics, Economy, Art, 2005). ¹ His more than two hundred Yeni Şafak columns of 1995–1999 are the first reservoir of his foreign-policy thinking. ²

Davutoğlu has been married since 1984 to Sare Davutoğlu, a gynecologist working in Istanbul; they have one son and four daughters. This record notes no family detail beyond what understanding his public career requires. ¹

Davutoğlu is the academic whose ideas moved to the centre of the state: he drew Turkey's global role from the advisor's and minister's chair, rose to the premiership, and left it in a clash with the president with whom he had built the party; his Strategic Depth remains the most cited text in every debate over Turkey's foreign direction. ¹

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