Turkey has carefully calibrated relations with countries in its neighborhood — which include perennial thorns like Iran, Syria, Iraq and Russia — and with the United States, which is so engaged in the region some there feel they should be able to vote in the US presidential election.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to expand trade with its immediate neighbors, irking the West but never alienating it — no easy task.

But with the Arab Spring and the Syrian conflict, things are changing in the region, and it might be the administration of US President Barack Obama that wins out in the end.

Since Obama took office, relations with Turkey are perhaps the best they’ve ever been.

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