The purpose of this book has been to examine the relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia within the context of internal, regional and international dynamics during the decades of the 1990s and the 2000s.

The end of the Cold War had a significant impact on the domestic and foreign policies of the two countries. It not only changed the dynamics and the balances in the region but also led to the emergence of several challenges in the region that pushed Turkey and Saudi Arabia closer. Until the 1990s, the Turkish and Saudi approaches toward each other were shaped by mutual suspicion. In Turkey, the ruling elite adopted a pro-Western foreign policy orientation and pursued a distant policy toward the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in order to preserve the secular state structure and Western values. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, which viewed Turkey's secular orientation as a threat to its political regime, did not have any interest in engaging in relations with the Turkish state.

However, the collapse of the Cold War political system forced Turkey and Saudi Arabia to redesign their foreign policies. In the post-Cold War era, the two countries engaged in efforts to carve out new roles for themselves in the Middle East. The course of relations particularly seemed to change with the First Gulf War (1990- 91), in which Turkey and Saudi Arabia took part in the same camp against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Turkey's active support for the US-led coalition and its key role in supporting the UN sanctions imposed on the Saddam regime received great appreciation from Saudi Arabia, the main regional player in the war. Despite the role of regional and international developments in Turkish-Saudi rapprochement, bilateral relations between the two countries did not see much improvement in the 1990s. Turkey adopted security-oriented policies toward the Middle East due to the threat of the PKK, which intensified its attacks against Turkey from neighboring countries, particularly Syria. On the other side, Saudi Arabia was engaged in efforts to support Syrian claims in Damascus's disputes with Turkey. In such an environment, mutual distrust and suspicion dominated relations. Against this background, after the signing of the Adana Agreement with Syria in 1998 and with the elimination of the PKK threat after the extradition of its leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, Turkey's relations with the Middle Eastern countries – including Saudi Arabia – started to normalize.