When you look at Turkey’s domestic policy, you may get the impression that are living in a chaotic country. However, the international performance and the method of approach to the problems of the same country refer to the existence of quite a different Turkey. One could suppose that there are two Turkey’s.
It is not as if this country does not pursue peace in the Middle East, asking Israel to apologise for its inaccurate attitude, and working to re-construct Iraq. Also, on January 25, fort he fourth time in Istanbul, the Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Summit was turned into a platform where the important decisions were taken by the leadership of Turkey. Turkey is such a country that on the one hand, it takes its place in the West within NATO and undertakes the Kabul District Command in Afghanistan; yet, on the other hand, it is the country that has won most of the Afghan people’s hearts. That is why Turkey has risen as a successful actor that builds in its geography common points between different identities, cultures and religious groups. That is also why Turkey makes efforts to advocate for both the education of the Afghan army and police instead of being a belligerent power in Afghanistan that exacerbates the struggle of the Afghan people between misery and ignorance with tangible assitance. As a matter of fact, Gül said that“it is a real fact that it is not possible to overcome the problems in Afghanistan only with the military methods…On one hand, while the Afghan security forces have been educating and developing in strong ways, on the other hand it is so important to embrace and take possesion of the Afghan people.
Once more, Turkey plays the role of being an important friend and wise country on the point of solving, and decreasing the tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan, while using its influnce on Pakistan. Gül said at this point “The friendship between Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan comes from history, urging us to work together more. We are undertaking the problems of the region and making efforts. We are in the belief that this will bring good consequeces.”
Of course, Turkey’s performance is not only restricted to the Asian steps and Middle East. At the same time, it is possible to encounter Turkish impressesions in the important developments in the Western world. However, because of the hazy weather of the country’s internal agenda, we perceive the election of a Turk to the Presidency of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, of which we are member since 1949, almost as nothing more than puny magazine news. Yet, it starts to become almost ordinary that the Turks arise every day with new appellation. The election of Mevlüt ÇavuÅŸoÄŸlu to a chair that acquires the status of being the ‘own property’ of the French and English people, it is extremely substantial not only in the consequence of being a Turk, but also of being the first parliamentarian elected from a country east of Vienna. When we stack these things up, the Londra Meeting where the problems of Afghanistan and Yemen were discussed in depth, a net aspect comes into existence related with the rising specific weight of Turkish foreign policy in the international arena.
In fact, at the last summit that was held in Istanbul, David Miliband, the Foreign Minister of England who is following the region closely and whose country has the tradition of an empire, said that “Today, bringing several countries together is an indication for Turkey that it will play a role of being a ‘bridge’ for the solution of problems.
To summarise, looking at the internal agenda Turkey is drowning while on the other hand, while opening up to the world there is a Turkey that is breathing. That is why we are talking about the story of two Turkey’s. However, it is relativelyhard to derive a common story of success for a country that has two different stories. Thus, for Turkey’s success, it is necessary to arrange the internal story of Turkey. I suppose that in order to arrange the ‘inner’ Turkey, it must move the vision, point of view, value system, and formulas of Turkey to the domestic politics as soon as possible.
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A Time Collapse in the Kurdish Problem
