The Turkish Straits and the Great Powers

The Turkish Straits, meaning the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are bodies of water which have long been of great strategic value. Süleyman Seydi’s book discusses the Straits issue in the context of twentieth century politics. Most histories of the Straits focus on the European Great Power rivalries of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, but Süleyman Seydi is concerned with the Second World War and the Cold War, periods during which the Soviet Union competed with other powers over access to the Mediterranean through the Straits. This power struggle involved the USSR’s main rivals, the United Kingdom and Germany at first and the United States later. Because the Straits issue was a major strategic concern, it influenced the diplomatic relationships between the Great Powers and the Turkish Republic. Süleyman Seydi explores the international and local repercussions of the question over access to the Straits, filling a gap in the current literature on the modern Near East.