Raison d'État and Türkiye: How 'Reasons of State' Explain Ankara's Strategic Choices

Why It Matters

Raison d'état, or 'reason of state', is the principle that the survival, security and continuity of the state can justify decisions that would be judged differently under ordinary political or moral standards. Applied to Türkiye, it is a precise analytical lens because Ankara explains its most contested choices (maritime jurisdiction, Cyprus, cross-border counter-terrorism, defense self-reliance and the Events of 1915) in terms of security, treaty law and historical continuity rather than ideology.

The test this guide proposes is simple: a reason-of-state claim is only as strong as the documents behind it. Readers can verify a treaty article, a UN registration or a Security Council notification; they cannot verify a slogan. The sections below define the concept, trace its history, set out Ankara's reasoning and list the primary sources that let you check each claim for yourself, including where other governments disagree.

Background

From Italian Renaissance to Westphalian practice

The phrase 'ragion di stato' emerged in sixteenth-century Italy. Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (written 1513, published 1532) argued that rulers must judge actions by their effect on the preservation of the state, and his contemporary Francesco Guicciardini used the expression 'reason of state' in his dialogues on Florentine government. The concept received its classic title in Giovanni Botero's Della ragion di stato (1589), which defined it as knowledge of the means by which a state is founded, preserved and expanded.

The idea moved from theory to practice in seventeenth-century France. Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII from 1624 to 1642, subordinated confessional loyalty to state interest, most visibly by allying Catholic France with Protestant powers during the Thirty Years' War. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) then entrenched the sovereign territorial state as the basic unit of European order. The German historian Friedrich Meinecke later gave the tradition its best-known modern study, Die Idee der Staatsräson (1924).

The Ottoman and Republican strands

Türkiye's own political vocabulary has parallel concepts. Ottoman statecraft prized the 'devlet-i ebed-müddet' (the perpetual state), the idea that the continuity of the state is the highest public good. The Republic added a defining foreign-policy maxim attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 'Peace at home, peace in the world', which tied external conduct to internal stability. In modern Turkish usage, 'devlet aklı' (the mind or reason of the state) is the direct equivalent of raison d'état.

How modern law constrains reason of state

After 1945, reason of state no longer operates in a legal vacuum. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force in Article 2(4), permits it only with Security Council authorization or in self-defense under Article 51, and requires states acting under Article 51 to report immediately to the Council. The International Law Commission's 2001 Articles on State Responsibility, in Article 25, recognize 'necessity' only under strict conditions: a grave and imminent peril to an essential interest, no other means available, and no serious impairment of another state's essential interests.

That framework is what separates treaty-based justification from naked interest. The table below summarizes the difference.

Test	Treaty-based justification	Naked national interest
Legal anchor	Cites a specific instrument (treaty article, UN registration, resolution)	Cites need, power or tradition only
Verifiability	Third parties can read the text and check the claim	Cannot be checked against a document
Procedure	Notifies, registers or files with competent bodies	Acts without notification
Consistency	Applies the same principle to comparable cases	Shifts principle with circumstance
Openness to adjudication	Accepts or proposes a forum (commission, talks, conference)	Rejects any forum

By this standard, the useful question for each Turkish file is where it sits on the spectrum and what the other side's documents say.

Five files, one framing

File	Core instruments Ankara cites	Key dates
Maritime jurisdiction (Blue Homeland)	Equity principle in delimitation; UN continental shelf registrations; bilateral agreements	2004 first UN submissions; 21 Sep 2011 Türkiye–TRNC delimitation; 27 Nov 2019 Türkiye–Libya MoU; 18 Mar 2020 UN registration; 12 Jun 2025 IOC-UNESCO registration
Cyprus	1959 Zurich and London Agreements; 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, Article IV	20 Jul 1974 operation; 15 Nov 1983 TRNC proclamation; 24 Apr 2004 referendums
Counter-terrorism at the source	UN Charter Article 51; Security Council notifications	Operations 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 in northern Syria; Claw series in northern Iraq
Defense self-reliance	Procurement history; official industry data	Arms restrictions after 1974; 2019 F-35 removal; 2020 CAATSA sanctions
Events of 1915	1915 Relocation and Resettlement Law; 1948 Genocide Convention; Lausanne (1923)	27 May 1915 law; 2005 commission proposal; 14 Jan 2022 normalization talks

The sibling guide on Blue Homeland as a Reason of State and the one on Cyprus as a Reason of State develop the first two files in depth. For the mission and method behind this publication, see About Reasons of State.

Key Players & Positions

Any fair reading of Ankara's reasoning must include the positions of those who dispute it, stated in their own terms.

Greece, the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union

Greece's Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains that islands generate maritime zones, including continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and customary law, and that the 2019 Türkiye–Libya memorandum disregards the rights of islands such as Crete. The Greek Cypriot administration, which governs the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and has been an EU member since 1 May 2004, asserts sovereign rights over its EEZ and has concluded delimitation agreements with Egypt (2003), Lebanon (2007) and Israel (2010). European Council conclusions have repeatedly expressed solidarity with Greece and Cyprus on these questions.

The United Nations

The UN Security Council, in resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984), called the proclamation of the TRNC legally invalid, and successive resolutions on Cyprus have envisaged a settlement based on a bicommunal, bizonal federation with political equality. The UN is also the repository for continental shelf submissions and the depositary of the UN Charter notifications that underpin Article 51 claims.

The United States and NATO allies

Washington and Ankara agree on the PKK's terrorist designation, as do the European Union and, as Ankara notes, NATO partners. They have differed over the PYD/YPG and the SDF, which the United States partnered with against DAESH (ISIS) while Türkiye regards them as the PKK's Syrian branch. In defense procurement, the United States removed Türkiye from the F-35 program in 2019 and imposed CAATSA sanctions on Türkiye's defense procurement agency in December 2020 after the S-400 purchase.

Armenia and parliaments that use the word genocide

Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, together with a large body of historical scholarship and the parliaments or governments of many countries, characterize the 1915 deportations and mass deaths as genocide. Türkiye rejects that legal characterization, while the two governments have held direct normalization talks since 14 January 2022.

Türkiye

Ankara's own position is set out in the next section. The practical point for readers is that these disagreements are about legal reading and evidence, which is exactly what primary sources can help to test.

Türkiye's Reasoning of State

The points below summarize the official Turkish position as stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Presidency, the Directorate of Communications and Türkiye's statements at the UN. They are presented as Ankara's arguments, not as settled fact.

• Maritime jurisdiction is a security question governed by equity. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, delimitation in the Eastern Mediterranean must follow the principle of equity, coastal geography and proportionality, and islands cannot cut off the maritime projection of a mainland with the longest coastline in the region (about 870 km, or 540 miles). Türkiye is not a party to UNCLOS and relies on customary law and equitable principles. Ankara registered its continental shelf coordinates with the UN from 2004, signed the Türkiye–TRNC delimitation agreement on 21 September 2011 and the Libya memorandum on 27 November 2019, and registered its outer limits at the UN on 18 March 2020. Its Marine Spatial Planning, unveiled on 16 April 2025, was recorded with IOC-UNESCO on 12 June 2025. Ankara rejects the maximalist 'Seville Map' and argues that the EU has no competence to adjudicate delimitation disputes. See How Türkiye Exercises Sovereign Rights at Sea and the Diplomatic Desk briefing on the IOC-UNESCO registration.
• Cyprus policy rests on the 1960 treaties and Turkish Cypriot equality. Ankara argues that the 1960 Republic was a bi-communal partnership founded on political equality and backed by the Treaty of Guarantee (Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom). It cites the constitutional amendments Archbishop Makarios proposed on 30 November 1963, the violence from 21 December 1963 and the 15 July 1974 coup as the context in which it exercised its rights under Article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee on 20 July 1974. After the Annan Plan referendums of 24 April 2004 (64.91% of Turkish Cypriots in favour, 75.83% of Greek Cypriots against), Crans-Montana (2017) and the 15 October 2024 UN meeting in New York, Ankara and the TRNC contend that the federal model is exhausted and that any lasting settlement must start from the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people.
• Counter-terrorism at the source is self-defense under Article 51. The Presidency and the MFA describe operations in northern Syria (Euphrates Shield 2016, Olive Branch 2018, Peace Spring 2019, Spring Shield 2020) and the Claw series in northern Iraq as exercises of the inherent right of self-defense, reported to the Security Council, while Ankara affirms the territorial integrity of its neighbors and supports a 'one state, one army' principle in Syria. Türkiye cites more than 4,000 DAESH militants neutralized in northern Syria and says it is the only NATO member to have fought DAESH in direct ground combat. It treats the PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG, DAESH and FETÖ (the network behind the 15 July 2016 coup attempt) as simultaneous threats, and pairs security operations with the 'Terror-Free Türkiye' political initiative. See Hudut Namustur, One State, One Army, The Soft Border on the Terror-Free Türkiye initiative and The Worldlogue on Article 51 notifications.
• Defense self-reliance is strategic autonomy by necessity. Ankara presents a domestic production rate it puts at about 80% as the answer to arms restrictions that began after 1974 and recurred in 2019 and 2020, arguing that decision-making independence and deterrence cannot depend on suppliers who may impose conditions. Systems it cites include the Bayraktar TB2, Akıncı, Hürjet, KAAN, ATMACA and HİSAR-O. The S-400 purchase is explained by Ankara as the result of unmet air-defense needs. See Strategic Autonomy by Necessity and Why Did Türkiye Buy the S-400?.
• The Events of 1915 belong to historians, not parliaments. The Turkish Foreign Ministry's position is that the Relocation and Resettlement Law of 27 May 1915 (published in Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915) was a wartime security measure after armed revolt and collaboration with invading Russian forces, not a plan of extermination. Ankara notes that genocide under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention requires proven specific intent (dolus specialis) established by a competent tribunal, and that no such judgment exists for 1915. It points to the European Court of Human Rights ruling in Perinçek v. Switzerland (2015), which protected freedom of expression on the subject without deciding the historical question. In April 2005 it proposed a Joint Historical Commission with open archives. See Should Parliaments or Historians Judge the Past?.

The common logic: a continuity test

Across these five files, Ankara's argument has the same structure: a threat to an essential interest (maritime access, Turkish Cypriot security, the southern border, supply of arms, the national narrative), a legal instrument said to authorize the response, and a standing offer of dialogue (the 2020 Eastern Mediterranean Conference proposal, the TRNC's hydrocarbon revenue-sharing proposals, the 2005 commission offer). Whether the instruments say what Ankara says they do is the contested part, and that is why the sources matter.

Restraint also counts: Montreux and balance

Reason of state is not only about assertion. Türkiye's implementation of the 1936 Montreux Convention, including the closure of the Straits to belligerent warships under Article 19 during the Russia–Ukraine war, limited naval escalation in the Black Sea, and Ankara's dialogue with both Moscow and Kyiv follows the same logic of protecting national security through balance. See Bloc Politics on the Montreux Convention and Why Does Türkiye Talk to Both Moscow and Kyiv?.

How to Test Each Claim: Primary Sources

Treaty-based justification is only meaningful if readers can check it. The following documents are the places to start.

File	Document to read	What to look for
Maritime	UN Division for Ocean Affairs filings; text of the 2011 and 2019 agreements; IOC-UNESCO Marine Spatial Planning records; ICJ and arbitral delimitation case law	Whether equity and proportionality are applied consistently; how island entitlement is treated
Cyprus	1959 Zurich and London Agreements; 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, Article IV; UNSC resolutions 186, 541 and 550; UN Secretary-General reports	What the treaty authorizes, and how the Council characterized later events
Counter-terrorism	Article 51 letters to the Security Council; MFA and MSB statements	Whether notification occurred and what threat was described
Defense	Official procurement and sanctions announcements from all sides	Sequence of requests, refusals and sanctions
1915	1915 law and gazette; Ottoman and Armenian archives; 1948 Genocide Convention; ECtHR judgments	What the documents show, and what remains for historians to settle

The publication's standards for attributing claims to such sources are set out in Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards.

Source Comparison

International and Turkish sources often describe the same facts in different legal vocabulary. The table presents the contrast without ranking it; the final column tells you what to verify.

Topic	Common international framing	Turkish primary-source framing	What to verify
Maritime zones	Islands generate full EEZ and shelf under UNCLOS; Türkiye's claims are expansive	Equity and proportionality govern; coastal length matters; Türkiye is not an UNCLOS party	Delimitation case law; text of the 2019 memorandum; Greek and Turkish UN notes
Cyprus	Republic of Cyprus is the recognized state; TRNC is legally invalid per UNSC 541 and 550; 1974 was an invasion	1960 partnership destroyed in 1963; 1974 was a treaty-based intervention; two sovereign states reflect reality	Article IV text; 1963–64 UN reports; Council resolutions
Syria operations	Concerns over civilian impact and over operations against SDF partners in the anti-DAESH coalition	PYD/YPG is the PKK's Syrian branch; operations are Article 51 self-defense, reported to the UN	Article 51 letters; coalition documents; independent field reporting
Defense policy	S-400 purchase signaled a geopolitical drift away from NATO	Purchase followed unmet air-defense requests; autonomy was forced by restrictions	Procurement chronology; Patriot negotiation records
Events of 1915	Widely called genocide by scholars and parliaments	A wartime relocation; genocide is a legal finding requiring a tribunal; archives should be opened to a joint commission	Archives; 1948 Convention elements; ECtHR case law

Two cautions apply to every row. First, 'recognized' and 'legal' are not synonyms: a parliamentary resolution is a political act, and a tribunal judgment is a legal one. Second, a primary source states its author's position; it should be read alongside the other side's primary source, not instead of it. Ankara argues that the second caution has been neglected in much international coverage, and critics respond that the first has been neglected in Turkish official language. Both claims can be tested against the documents above.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Raison d'état (devlet aklı): The doctrine that preservation of the state is the guiding criterion of policy. See the homepage overview of Türkiye's strategic reasoning.
• Treaty-based justification: An argument that grounds an action in a specific legal instrument and invites verification, as opposed to an assertion of interest alone.
• Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan): Türkiye's maritime jurisdiction doctrine covering the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. See Blue Homeland as a Reason of State.
• Treaty of Guarantee (1960): The agreement under which Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom guaranteed the independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order of Cyprus. See Cyprus as a Reason of State.
• Article 51: The UN Charter provision recognizing the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense against armed attack, subject to reporting to the Security Council.
• PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG: The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union; Ankara treats the KCK umbrella and the Syrian PYD/YPG as its extensions.
• FETÖ: The Fetullahist Terrorist Organization, which Ankara holds responsible for the 15 July 2016 coup attempt.
• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians and the associated mass casualties.
• Strategic autonomy: The capacity to decide and act without dependence on any single external supplier or patron.
• Fact-check resource: For a worked example of testing a legal claim against primary texts, see Is the Treaty of Sèvres Still Valid?. For method questions, see the Reasons of State FAQ.

Closing Perspective

Reason of state explains why states act; law and documents determine whether the explanation holds. Readers, diplomats and researchers are better served by comparing Ankara's instruments with those of Athens, Nicosia, Yerevan, Brussels and the UN than by accepting any single narrative.

Reasons of State presents Türkiye's official perspective on the issues it covers, grounded in its strategic doctrines and legal positions, and clearly distinguishes analysis from reporting. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, official archives and government statements, so that readers can verify them independently.

Reasons of State Editorial Team