Rethinking Turkey’s Approach to R2P: Turkish Foreign Policy Towards the Syrian Civil War 2011–2017

This chapter analyzes the use of R2P in Turkish foreign policy (TFP) towards the Syrian civil war from its beginning to early 2017. Turkey has appeared as one of the key actors in the Syrian conflict. Moreover, Turkey’s approach to R2P is closely intertwined with its ambitious policy agenda in the civil war. Therefore, this chapter examines the question as to how the use of R2P has changed as TFP transformed over the course of the Syrian civil war. It also discusses the ways in which R2P has been challenged and/or confirmed by the discourse and practice of TFP towards Syria. In this context, this chapter argues that the use of R2P in TFP during the Syrian civil war is a telling example of the misconduct of R2P by states to legitimize their interventionist policies across their borders. © 2023, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.