Türkiye Takes Strategic Steps for Peace in the Israel–U.S.–Iran War

MIT Director Kalın: In the Face of the War Initiated by Israel, Türkiye Acts with Strategy, Vigilance, and Determination

In a speech delivered at the International Strategic Communication Summit (STRATCOM), organized by the Presidency’s Communications Directorate, Director of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), İbrahim Kalın, stated that Israel has taken steps to sabotage negotiation initiatives, and emphasized that Türkiye continues its diplomatic efforts to bring the war to an end and to prevent the regional crisis from spreading.

In his speech, Kalın also offered assessments on the Israel–U.S.–Iran war, regional security balances, the strategy pursued by Türkiye, as well as the concepts of knowledge, truth, and narrative.

Here is the speech delivered by MIT Director Kalın at the summit:

Mr. Minister, Mr. President, distinguished guests, dear friends from abroad, esteemed participants; I greet you all with respect.

First and foremost, I would like to extend my thanks and congratulations to our Presidency’s Communications Directorate, to its President, Mr. Burhanettin Duran, and to his team for organizing this Strategic Communication Summit. I thank them for bringing us together at such a critical time and for providing us with the opportunity both to exchange views in this field and to engage in intellectual deliberation on important issues.

In an age where communication is gaining ever greater importance, reflecting on the relationships between knowledge, narrative, and power will, I believe, provide us with important insights into what we should communicate and how we should communicate it.

Before moving on to the theoretical part of my speech, I would like to briefly share with you a few points regarding current developments.

Since the pandemic, our world has been passing through many critical thresholds, crises, and ruptures. The Russia–Ukraine war, which began in 2022, has now entered its fifth year. Unfortunately, there is still no clear picture as to how the war will end.

The effects of the war that began on October 7, 2023, in Israel with Hamas are still ongoing. During this period, while our efforts to bring peace to Gaza continue, Israel’s violations and its policies of occupation and annexation persist without interruption.

We also continue to feel the effects throughout our entire region of the Syrian Revolution that took place in Syria on December 8, 2024.

The 12-day Israel–Iran war that took place in June of last year served to test and reveal the actual conditions of the war we are currently in. At present, we find ourselves in the midst of the Israel–U.S.–Iran war, which began on February 28 and has been ongoing for a month. In order to prevent this war, and in the first place to prevent its emergence, we exerted intensive efforts under the leadership of our President, together with our Minister of Foreign Affairs, our Minister of National Defense, ourselves, our Communications Directorate, and all other relevant colleagues.

On every occasion, by emphasizing that a world system based on unpredictability, fragility, and the arbitrary use of power can only generate new crises and wars, we made extensive efforts to prevent such conflicts and destruction from taking place. Today, in the midst of this war, over the course of approximately one month, we have exerted intensive efforts, first, to bring this war to an end, and second, to keep Türkiye out of this war. These efforts continue without interruption.

As of today, we are further intensifying our efforts to ensure that this war does not spread throughout the entire region, does not become more destructive, and does not cause lasting damage in the future.

However, unfortunately, this regional war initiated by Israel is rapidly evolving into a global crisis and, as expressed by our President, is swiftly becoming a reality in which “8 billion people are paying the price.” Our primary effort will be, above all, to bring this war to an end as soon as possible.

I must also state that, alongside this major war, a great fire of discord has been ignited in our region. One of the calculated outcomes of this war is not merely the elimination of Iran’s nuclear capacity, but—far more dangerously—the taking of steps that will lay the groundwork for a fratricidal war, a blood feud, lasting for decades among the founding core elements of the region: Turks, Kurds, Arabs, and Persians. I would like to emphasize that, as Türkiye, we will fight against these developments with unwavering vigilance until the very end.

As Türkiye, we have never been—and will never be—the side that fuels the fire of discord. If necessary, we will take the fireball into our own hands and cool it upon our chests, but we will never cast it into the fire of discord. We will continue to stand against those who seek to spread this fire of discord, through our own internal dynamics, our values, our leadership, and our own priorities. We act with full awareness of who our friends and enemies are.

I would like to reiterate once again that, as Türkiye, we will not deviate from this course. There is no need even to state that the war against Iran lacks any basis under international law. However, we are well aware that those who initiated this war are not limiting themselves to Iran alone; rather, by creating faits accomplis in the region—in Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere—they are pursuing new policies of destruction, annexation, and occupation. In particular, we observe that the recent developments in Lebanon constitute an attempt to create a fait accompli similar to what occurred in the Golan Heights in 1974, and to transform this into a policy of destruction, annexation, and occupation. We are intensifying our efforts to prevent this.

As Türkiye, I would like to state that we will not allow the deprivation of Palestinians’ fundamental rights through a fait accompli—whether in Lebanon or in the Palestinian territories—nor will we permit the violations taking place in Gaza and the West Bank to be ignored.

As a result of developments in the war that unfolded through a chain of interconnected processes that triggered one another, the conflict has now spread beyond Iran to encompass the entire Gulf region. While the attacks carried out against Iran are unquestionably wrong, we must also state that attacks directed at the Gulf region do not serve the intended purpose.

In all our meetings and consultations with the friendly and brotherly countries in the Gulf, we emphasize the need to act from a perspective grounded in the region’s own dynamics in order to bring this war to an end as soon as possible. On this occasion, I pray for God’s mercy upon all our brothers and sisters who have lost their lives in this war, both in Iran and across the region. I would also like to state that we will continue to make every possible effort to ensure that such suffering is never experienced again.

Of course, Iran’s attacks on the Gulf countries are unacceptable; however, we must never forget who the primary actor that initiated this war is. Therefore, we must increase pressure on Israel and focus our efforts on the party that initiated the war in order to prevent this conflict from turning into a regional war and a global crisis.

Under the leadership of our President, and through the initiatives of our Minister of Foreign Affairs and ourselves, we have been engaged in intensive efforts for days to establish a negotiation table. We are asked every day: “Will there be talks? Will there be negotiations? Will a table be set?” We fully support the initiative of our Pakistani brothers, who have extended a helping hand in this regard. A proper ground must be established for these talks to take place. We have not the slightest doubt that our Pakistani brothers will carry out this matter with competence.

However, just as before the war—and repeatedly since it began—we observe that Israel, which has sabotaged every negotiation initiative and every effort to open channels of dialogue and communication, is once again making intensive efforts over the past two days, through its attacks, to sabotage and undermine these initiatives.

As I have stated before, we will continue to exert every possible effort, without interruption, day and night, to bring this war to an end. Once the war is over, we will also have to undertake efforts to ensure the swift recovery of the lasting damage in the region and to prevent further permanent damage, by working toward the establishment of a security architecture in our region based on our own dynamics.

While managing this process, under the leadership of our President and in coordination with all our relevant institutions, we are drawing important lessons for our country’s security, its strategic positioning, and its regional perspective. As a result of these lessons, we are strengthening our country’s security framework and striving to enhance our resilience. Please allow me to state that we have taken certain strategic steps in this direction.

With regard to power, knowledge, and narrative—one of the most important themes of this communication summit—I would like to share a few points with you, if I may.

First, I believe it would be beneficial to engage in a brief conceptual reflection on what knowledge is, how power influences it, and what we mean by narrative or story.

It has been approximately half a century since postmodernism declared the end of the era of grand narratives. Since the 1970s, postmodernist thinkers have argued that the age of grand narratives—such as reason, science, enlightenment, progress, religion, and society—has come to an end. They put forward the thesis that the course of humanity would henceforth proceed through more micro-level histories and relations—such as identity, gender, ethnic identities, and social classes. However, when we examine what has been put in place of grand narratives such as reason, enlightenment, and science, we observe that—contrary to the claims or predictions of postmodernists—it is not a new narrative but rather consumption-based capitalist modes of production and the culture of display that have come to dominate both discourse and action.

Perhaps postmodernism’s critiques of classical modernity made important contributions in the sense of blunting its sharp edges. For the modernist, Enlightenment-era, rationalist perspectives that operated at the extremes had caused certain wounds in humanity’s intellectual and emotional world, as well as in social life. In this sense, one might say that it made a significant contribution by tempering those sharp edges.

However, when we consider the concepts introduced with postmodernism, we find ourselves confronted with a new tangle of problems. The denial of truth, the instrumentalization of knowledge, the virtualization of reality, the transformation of existence into something that is bent, twisted, shaped, and turned into a commodity; ethical and epistemic relativism, relativity, the erosion of meaning in knowledge, the nihilistic turn of politics, the loss of meaning, and the proliferation of concepts such as hyperreality and simulacra—all of these have plunged us into a period of chaos and disorder.

And none of this has made the world more rational, more free, or more just. On the contrary, we have entered a dark era in which irrational, anti-freedom, and darker forces have come to the fore—an era that seems to validate and confirm Freud’s predictions about the unconscious. We have reached a point where some now refer to this as the “dark enlightenment.”

I believe that, to see that knowledge alone is not sufficient, it is enough to look at the story of the devil.

Knowing alone is never sufficient. For even the devil, at that very first moment of creation, knew very well what was what. We must pair knowing with judgment, and knowledge with wisdom.

One of the greatest misconceptions of our age is that what we refer to as the “age of knowledge” is in fact an age of information—that is, an age of data. We are living in an era in which information is abundant, knowledge is gradually diminishing, and wisdom has all but disappeared.

To borrow the elegant expression of our esteemed Nabi Avcı, we are passing through a period in which we are moving from “informational ignorance” toward an “informational catastrophe.”

Every day, millions and billions of data points are produced, yet their meaning, nature, and direction remain unknown and incomprehensible; we find ourselves confronted with an accumulation of information that offers no remedy, no solution to our problems—a period of informational catastrophe.

For the mere production of data, of information alone, is not sufficient for a human being to reach their goal. Information alone is not enough; knowledge alone is not enough; knowing alone does not suffice—we must also possess wisdom.

The word “wisdom,” which has also entered our Turkish language, shares the same root as the concepts of judgment and reasoning. It refers to knowledge grounded in a firm root, a solid foundation, a sound basis. A form of reasoning that does not rest on a solid ground, or an interpretation or evaluation that is not based on sound knowledge, will lead you into dead ends in your actions. Therefore, both your knowledge and the way you process it—that is, your processes of reasoning—must be sound and robust.

At this point, when we examine the concept of truth, truth is the conceptualization that expresses to us the true nature of things based on correct knowledge. Truth is the knowledge that conveys to us the true nature of things exactly as they are. Any statement that does not meet this criterion is a claim, a thesis, an assertion that must be proven. Only when it becomes a conception fully integrated with the truth of things does that knowledge transform into truth. And since we cannot conceive of knowledge separate from the truth of things, there exists a very close relationship between truth and existence.

However, at the point to which the processes of modernism and postmodernism have brought us, we have severed the bond between knowledge and truth, and between truth and existence. We now live in an age in which we instrumentalize knowledge, reduce truth to subjective arbitrariness, and assume that we construct and shape existence according to our own discretion. As a result, we are unable to establish the relationship between knowledge and existence, or between truth and knowledge. For this reason, we also struggle to comprehend that what we speak of or circulate as knowledge consists, in fact, merely of certain processes within our minds.

Yet, if we are to reflect on the meaning of knowledge, the nature of truth, and the essence of existence, we must necessarily place these concepts in their proper context, assigning each to its rightful place.

If truth refers to knowledge that mirrors the intrinsic nature of things, then we must also have an understanding of the nature of the existence of things.

For, according to the thesis advanced by Muslim thinkers such as Mulla Sadra, knowledge is one of the modes of existence. If you conceive of knowledge as separate from existence, you reduce it to a conceptual, abstract instrument within your mind.

Yet the reality to which knowledge corresponds is not abstract but concrete. Its mode of expression may be a generalization—thus abstract—but it must be grounded in a truth.

The reduction of our conception of existence to a commodity is directly related to modernity’s desire to bring everything under control.

The point to which the modern world has brought us is a conception of existence imposed by hypermodernity: controllable existence. In order to control, you are expected to render everything quantitative and transform it into a form that can be calculated and accounted for. Where you are unable to do so, that thing ceases to be part of existence for you. This means that you exercise control over existence only to the extent that you are able to control it. Consequently, the purpose of knowledge has increasingly become one of control.

Within this context, we must reclaim the concept of truth, re-establish knowledge on a sound foundation, and redefine our conception of existence within a proper framework. Especially in the face of postmodernism’s anti-realist tendencies that deny truth and reality, and against today’s tendencies referred to as post-truth, we will continue to defend truth.

We will continue to defend, against irrationalism, an enlightened reason grounded firmly in reality; against enslavement, freedom; against mechanization, the human being; and against dark enlightenment, a profound enlightenment.

We will insist that these are not relative, arbitrary, context-free, class-based, or political values, but rather absolute, binding, and universal values.

Just as we oppose the deification of the human being, we will continue to stand equally against the mechanization and robotization of the human being.

By recalling that knowledge is a process of construction and discovery, we will strive to rebuild its sanctity. For when we define knowledge not merely as an instrumental value, but as an expression of truth and existence, it will become a value that brings us into being and shapes us.

Since the Enlightenment, the West has sought to define knowledge by grounding it in the power of reason. However, as a result, it has entered into a number of dead ends.

In the Islamic intellectual tradition, knowledge is grounded in existence. When you sever this relationship between knowledge and existence, the instrumentalization of knowledge becomes inevitable.

Finally, I would like to briefly touch upon the issue of narrative—the matter of storytelling.

For communication is not merely an effort to transmit information and messages. Communication is also an effort to provide direction and a sense of purpose. Divine messages—each of the sacred texts that come to us in the form of revelation—are messages; they are a method of divine communication. Yet their meaning, their ultimate purpose, is to construct meaning and to provide us with guidance concerning our lives.

Undoubtedly, the primary purpose of human communication is likewise to construct meaning and to provide direction—to give a correct answer to the question of why we do what we do. Therefore, communication is also an effort to construct meaning, to chart a course, and to find our own direction.

For many years, one of the fundamental problems of the Islamic world—including Türkiye—has unfortunately been its lack of awareness of its own story, its inability to think through its own conceptual framework, and its inability to speak in its own words.

Yet, what you do not name is not yours. A story you do not name is not your story. Even when you use your own words within someone else’s grammar, you are not using your own language.

You merely distort your own words within another linguistic universe through someone else’s syntax.

Yet, you must simultaneously construct your own syntax, your grammar, and your semantics.

Attempting to force words into that syntax does not provide you with a better, more authentic, or more realistic means of expression.

That which you do not narrate as a story does not go beyond being a mere occurrence. Events that are experienced only become enduring narratives when they are turned into stories. That is why, in our tradition, what our predecessors referred to as the art of narration—the art of narrative construction—is of great value.

Likewise, the narration of parables in sacred texts, the telling of the stories of prophets in our tradition, and the narration of works such as One Thousand and One Nights, along with dozens of other stories in our tradition, all share a fundamental purpose: to tell stories that illuminate the human journey on earth and to hold up a mirror to it.

This is also the fundamental reason why the Masnavi constructs its own structure through stories. Storytelling is not an ordinary matter.

To put it in plain terms, storytelling is not something trivial.

Storytelling is a serious endeavor. If you have a story, if you have something to say, then it means you have a narrative.

And when constructing the language of this narrative—when telling your own story—the conceptual framework you take as your reference is of utmost importance.

That is why, in order to tell our own story, we must rediscover and reconstruct our own conceptual framework, our own world of words. I must state that this is only possible through the correct definition of knowledge, the accurate depiction of truth, and the construction of the narrative on sound foundations.

Precisely at this point, despite—and in opposition to—all the assaults of dark enlightenment, capitalist models of consumption, and all the distortions of the culture of display, we will continue to protect and liberate our minds and our hearts.

By prioritizing ijtihad against stagnation, reform against decay, renewal against stagnation, unity against fragmentation, an innovative tradition against the status quo, and revolutionary values against inertia, we will construct for ourselves a new narrative and a new future.

We will remain vigilant at all times against the games of creating enemies and will thwart their schemes.

As Türkiye, we will continue on our path without separating knowledge from truth, truth from existence, power from right and justice, or story and narrative from meaning and direction.

Our fundamental effort and endeavor will be to tell our story in a universal language—while recognizing and understanding that our story is not merely the story of this group, that faction, this region, or this city, but the story of our entire geography and of all humanity—and to share it with all those who have the heart, the mind, and the ears to listen to us.

For this reason, we will build our story, we will tell it, and we will share it, so that our story may be enriched by the stories of others. Thank you all.