The reaction to Istanbul-based diplomats
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally expresses the need to open up to foreign countries. He has said, “The aim of the terror attacks is to make Turkey withdraw inward.”
To become introverted is negative because it would block Turkey and stop it from reaching its 2023 targets. The 2023 targets are at stake.
So, is it worth the risk for the sake of bringing into line those who support journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül? Is it worth the sacrifice?
Turkey has to meet its targets to reach the power and grandness it longs for. If there are those who do not want a powerful and great Turkey, then one has to be vigilant and careful against their traps.
We know the response Erdoğan thinks that should be given to such threats. As he has repeated many times, the correct response is to continue on the path without stopping, hesitating, diverting, waiting or detouring.
As a matter of fact, we are further distancing from the determined target every passing day. Time works against a powerful Turkey, not in favor of it.
This is because exports, national income per capita and similar figures are either non-changing or have been declining.
When data is reviewed, we can see it has already become difficult to be able to finish our homework for 2023. There are even businessmen who say it has become impossible to reach the power and grandness sought in 2023.
Under these conditions, let us ponder whether the jailing of journalists Dündar and Gül is more important than Turkey’s 2023 targets and its isolation. Does the reaction we have shown to consuls general present at the journalists’ court session serve Turkey’s interests or bring further isolation?
It is a matter of basic choices. If we are to continue turning our face to the West, then being almost at the brink of sending home all Western diplomats who observed the hearing does not look like a vigilant and careful reaction.
We have confronted the U.K., France, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the U.S. and Canada, all in one go.
We not only told them they were still able to keep their posts thanks to our generosity, we also told them that with this kind of behavior they would not be welcomes in any other place; we slipped a diplomatic note to each one of them.
In the aftermath, we are spending our days debating the dose of this reaction and whether the consuls general deserve this.
This is not something foreign diplomats don’t do. They were posing for photographs with a politician who was jailed for citing a poem, thus sending solidarity messages, and they were doing the same with two journalists on trial with charges of spying.
If the biggest threat ahead is being isolated, then should this be the language and content of our reaction?
Are we going to sever all ties with the EU, the U.S. and NATO?
It is hard to go back to our good old days with Russia. It is harder than joining the EU. In China, the one-man ambition of Chinese leader Xi Jinping is the talk. He is a popular leader but there are discontented voices heard. He is being accused of monopolizing all the power and personalizing the government. He has been exposed to articles titled: “A Thousand Yes-Men Cannot Equal One Honest Advisor.”
If Turkey’s future does not lie with the Chinese option, then what’s the difference between what we are doing and cutting of our nose to spite our face?
