The Republic of Turkey in its centenary

Undoubtedly, one of the things the Turkish people owe most to the Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is "security."

Security was the issue that occupied the minds of statesmen the most during the last hundred, or even hundred and fifty years of the Ottoman Empire. The most important issue guiding the last century of the empire, especially the modernization movement, was to prevent the chronic loss of territory.

This problem was never solved until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; as a result of successive attacks, the empire grew weaker with each passing day and eventually collapsed.

Atatürk solved this problem permanently in one go and turned a new page with the proclamation of the republic in 1923. Indeed, throughout the century that has passed, Turkey has not lost any territory, and the people of the Republic of Turkey have never experienced the paranoia, anxiety, and suffering that the people of the Ottoman Empire endured.

This success of Atatürk stems primarily from the completeness of the victory he won in the War of Independence. The clarity of this success also made the legitimacy of the Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed after the war and serves as the title deed of the republic, unquestionable.

The other pillar of Atatürk's success is the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world."

With this approach, Atatürk forbade the country from entering into adventures like the First World War and stipulated that its foreign policy goals be achieved through peaceful means, using law and diplomacy.

Thanks to the Treaty of Lausanne, the territorial integrity of the Republic of Turkey—with the exception of Stalin's demand for Kars and Ardahan in 1946—has never been a subject of debate, and Turkey has never faced the unjust demands and attacks to which the Ottoman Empire was subjected. The only change made to the borders of Lausanne is Hatay, which joined the motherland in 1939.

With this feature, Lausanne stands in a unique position among the peace treaties signed after the First World War. A common feature of the treaties signed after the First World War is that they were not "satisfactory." The injustices in these treaties often created new security problems and led to many wars and acts of violence, most notably the Second World War.

The Republic of Turkey, on the other hand, neither questioned its own territorial integrity with the Treaty of Lausanne, nor did it question the territorial integrity of other countries with the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world."

The environment of peace brought about by Lausanne and the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world" is a luxury that many of Turkey's neighbors in the Middle East and the Balkans, as well as many countries in Asia and Europe, do not possess.

Countries established by treaties, especially after the First World War, share a common feature of entering into risky adventures or being subjected to attacks during the process leading up to the Second World War or during the Second World War itself.

As a result, the sovereign rights of all of them were endangered.

Turkey is an exception at this point and, thanks to both the satisfactory nature of the Treaty of Lausanne and the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world," it has not experienced such a fate.

On the contrary, Turkey became a symbol of "peace" both in the process leading up to the Second World War and during the war, and managed to become one of the few countries that could get along with all parties despite being indirectly part of the war.

Leaders after the Second World War also did not abandon the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world" and carried Turkey into the 2000s with relatively sensible foreign policies.

The Treaty of Lausanne and the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world" have been the sole elements that guaranteed the country's future and carried the Republic of Turkey to its centenary without experiencing any tremors.

However, we see that the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world" has been shelved since 2010. Although there is no threat to Turkey's territorial integrity yet as a result of this erroneous approach, it is clear that the country is paying a heavy price and that Turkey's security is under threat.

I hope that Turkey's leaders will abandon this policy in the future and return to the path drawn by Atatürk.

Indeed, Turkey has gained nothing and lost much in the last thirteen years.

To many more centuries.