The price of rejecting Atatürk’s philosophy...

Our founding leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who left behind teachings that would endure for generations in foreign policy, placed peace at the center of Turkish foreign policy with the principle of “Peace at home, peace in the world.” Atatürk, who established getting along with neighbors and all states as the foundation of Turkish politics, stated, “A direction of peace that aims for Turkey’s security and is not against any nation will be our permanent principle.” In this context, his genius in foreign policy was based on rationality instead of adventurism, the security of borders instead of expansionism, international legitimacy instead of lawlessness, and dialogue and cooperation instead of conflict. This philosophy, which Atatürk built with care and high expertise, served as a roadmap for successive governments for decades as the Republic’s fundamental foreign policy approach. That was until the AKP government…

When they came to power in 2002, the AKP government set out with the principle of zero problems with neighbors, but as their power grew over the years, they belittled and even rejected this philosophy.

During the Arab Spring, which began in 2010 and spread to Syria in 2011, they predicted that the opponents of Syrian President Assad would win and dragged our relations with Syria into an irreversible mistake. President Erdoğan, who used to meet with Assad and his family before 2011, eventually labeled Assad a murderer and a dictator, accelerating the rupture of relations with our neighbor. It would be useful to share a piece of data to remember those days. In a statement made in 2013, the then Foreign Minister Davutoğlu said that the 100 thousand refugees, which they called the “psychological threshold,” had long been exceeded and that 600 thousand people had come to Turkey, and continued his words as follows: “You can host 100 thousand people in camps, but when this number is expressed in the hundreds of thousands, it goes beyond being managed by camps. 

…Those in the cities have almost exceeded twice the number of those in the camps.” Considering that there are millions of refugees in our country today, one cannot help but say “how things have changed,” much like the song Erdoğan is so fond of.

The only mistake was not just the Syria policy, of course. In fact, this chain of errors began with rejecting the legacy of the past. The AKP government accused the ambassadors and diplomats raised during the Republican era of being “monşer” (a derogatory term implying they were out of touch with the people). However, the foreign service personnel raised by the Republic were expert cadres who had adopted Atatürk’s “Peace at home, peace in the world” principle as their guide and were masters of foreign relations with their high expertise and deep intellectual background. Having entered the foreign service through difficult exams, they received training at every stage, reached every level through further examinations, and in difficult times, they signed agreements that would go down in history to ensure peace and security. Examples of these negotiations include; starting from the Balkan and Saadabad Pacts, the signing of the Montreux Convention, the resolution of the Hatay issue, keeping the country out of the bloody Second World War, the 50-year-long negotiations for Common Market / European Union membership, and the resolution of the Cyprus issue in line with national interests. Moreover, Turkish foreign service personnel never called themselves “monşer.” This term also alluded to a period reminiscent of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, as it could also imply an admiration for foreigners. It was impossible for them to accept this. They expressed their reactions sometimes through screens and sometimes in writing. Nevertheless, they did not stop pointing out what was going wrong in Turkish foreign policy over the last twenty years and showing the right path with their ideas and suggestions.

As a result, the rejection of a legacy dating back to the founding of the Republic, and the abandonment of moderate foreign policy and foreign relations, caused a change in our country’s sociology and disturbed the peace of the public. At the point reached today, the preservation of Syria’s territorial integrity and holding talks with Assad, which the opposition has emphasized for years, are on the agenda. The damage caused by sectarian approaches and incorrect foreign policy is undoubtedly immense. As Atatürk said, “International disputes are resolved only through good will and in the name of the general interest, by way of mutual sacrifice.” For the refugee problem facing Turkey to be solved, the heads of state of the two countries will need to sit at the table with good intentions. It is already apparent that this process will not be easy at all.