Portugal and Turkey: An Increasingly Substantive Relationship

Turkey Policy Brief Series (IPLI – TEPAV) 7th edition, 2012, 5 p.                         Français

by Paulo Gorjão *

This policy brief argues that Portugal increasingly values its relationship with Turkey, and there was no reason to fear in Ankara that the change of government in Portugal, in June 2011, could trigger a change in the bilateral relationship. Portuguese and Turkish national interests are not absolutely symmetrical, and this means that the relations, both at bilateral and multilateral levels, are not without its points of divergence. However, the reasons that support a cooperative relationship far outweigh factors behind a potentially confl icting bilateral relationship. Thus, the deepening political and economic relations means that the bilateral relationship is likely to gain increasing substance in the forthcoming years.

* Paulo Gorjão is Director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security (IPRIS) and lecturer of international relations in the Human and Social Sciences Faculty at Lusíada University in Lisbon, Portugal.

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