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The Arab Spring refers to the stream of events which started in Tunisia, 2010, and then it spread to Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain and also impacted most countries of Middle East and North Africa (MENA). There were various social-cultural, political and economic effects which caused the Arab Spring. However, Arab Spring also affected the relations between the countries with regards to the areas of social-cultural, international politics and economics. In this research, especially the effects of Arab Spring on the foreign trade of Turkey from 2005 to 2015 have been discussed. An analysis of the exports and the imports have been included in this research, it has been observed that the export trend initially depicted an upward trend before the Arab Spring. However, after the outburst of the Arab Spring the trend was adversely affected but later the trend again improved. Generally, the import share showed a similar trend to the export share but the change in the import share was not as dramatic as the export share. The main reason behind the sharp increase in exports was that, Arab Spring adversely impacted the economic status of the countries and the political relations between Turkey and these countries transformed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The today's world which is characterized by many dimensions of globalization, the political relationship between countries, especially in the countries' foreign economic goals; it is impossible to think that they are independent from each other. For this reason, the foreign trade is considered as the impulsion of economic development. Hence, it is very important that countries should have a sound relationship with other states particularly the neighbors. In this sense, as every political tension and stiff relation between countries will decrease the volume of foreign trade; the improved relations will increase the foreign trade volume too. From this point of view, this study analysis the Turkey- Syrian axis of relations. With the basic outline and the failure to draw clear lines, if an attempt is made to periodization, it can be concluded that Turkey-Syria relations are nervous except 2000-2010 period. By assessing the foreign trade reflections of these two countries, while bearing in mind the above mentioned points; it can be said the volume of foreign trade was healthy and sound during that period of friendly relations. Nevertheless, still the potential true foreign trade between the two countries seems to be quite below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]