Not long ago, Turkey was considered a steadfast U.S. ally, situated geographically near Asia and the Middle East, but much closer to Europe when it comes to politics.

Turkey is a NATO member and has 1,700 troops in Afghanistan; it was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel in 1949, after having been a safe haven for many Jews fleeing the Holocaust; and until recently, most of the 80 million Turks were eager to see their country entering the European Union.

No wonder the West is shocked that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be looking eastward in recent months.

Strongly opposed to sanctions against Iran, Erdogan, a hero in the Arab world, has forged stable diplomatic bonds with leaders in Tehran. Ankara voted against the latest U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran and a week ago, it warmly welcomed Iran's controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a regional security summit meeting in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Ankara's traditionally solid relations with Israel took a turn for the worse when Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2008-09. Things escalated when Israel launched a deadly commando operation on a Gaza aid flotilla, killing several Turkish nationals.

Erdogan, in an unusually fierce tirade, denounced the operation as "state terrorism," vowing that relations with Israel would never be the same again.

How did it come so far?

One might have to look back to December 2008, at a time when Erdogan mediated indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria. Erdogan was confident that a breakthrough in the peace talks was imminent when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Istanbul on Dec. 22. However, he had heard rumors about a possible military offensive and asked Olmert whether those rumors were true, says Gulay Kizilocak, an expert with the Center for Studies on Turkey, a think tank in Essen, Germany. Olmert promised him this wasn't the case. Five days later, Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza in which at least 1,400 Palestinians died.

"Erdogan took that very personally," Kizilocak told United Press International in a telephone interview Tuesday.

A few weeks later, an angry Erdogan stormed out of a discussion round table with Israeli President Shimon Perez. His latest tirades reflect a deep frustration with the government of current Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu -- a sentiment shared by many officials in Europe. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a recent visit to London nevertheless called the Turkish-Israeli war of words a "matter of concern."

Turkey's relations with Europe also suffered. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who took office in 2005 and 2007, respectively, are opposed to full EU membership for Turkey.

While Erdogan is still pushing for EU membership, he knows that it's an unrealistic goal at the moment. Kizilocak said Brussels left Erdogan few choices but to look for partners elsewhere.

"The EU has given Turkey the runaround for the past years, repeatedly delaying EU membership talks," she said, adding that an EU hangover has ensued in Turkey: Popular support for EU membership fell from around 75 percent in 2002 to less than 50 percent in 2010, she said.

Does that mean the West has lost Turkey? Not at all, Kizilocak says. Turkey will always forge good relations with Europe and the United States, she said, adding that Ankara, Washington, Jerusalem and Brussels share a common goal -- stability in the Middle East.

"Turkey is not cutting itself off from the West," Kizilocak said. "Rather, Turkey is an emerging regional player that updates its foreign policy. It's eager to build bridges with its neighbors."

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