Who Doesn’t Want the Turks in the Region?

Note: This article was published on aljazeera.net.

 

I know that most of my readers are Arabs. I would like to sincerely share with my Arab readers a topic I wish to discuss. Mine is an effort aimed entirely at understanding the issue without prejudice.

Israel is making intense efforts to ensure that Turks are not included in the International Stabilization Force to be deployed in Gaza. Türkiye, on the other hand, keeps telling the United States that Turkish soldiers should also be part of the stabilization force as a component of the “Trump Deal.”

The issue has not yet been resolved.

While discussing these matters, I wanted to talk with you about an issue I have encountered in the region for many years.

When I phrase the question like this, you will immediately understand the sensitivity of the matter: Who else in the region doesn’t want the Turks?

Surprising questions I encountered in Arab countries

I can express my thoughts more clearly by recounting a series of events I experienced.

As Anadolu Agency, the official publication organ of the Turkish State, we began broadcasting in Arabic in 2012. As the president of the agency, I had planned a series of trips to Arab countries to promote our Arabic-language publications and find subscribers.

It was early 2013. We were to travel through all the countries from Morocco to Lebanon, visit Arab media outlets there, hold meetings, and then promote our publications and ask them to subscribe. We started as planned and held our first meeting in Morocco.

At the end of my speech, I said, “If anyone has questions, I’d be happy to answer them.” A journalist, who seemed fairly young, asked the following: “Why did you start Arabic broadcasting right at the time of the Arab Spring? Are you promoting Neo-Ottomanism? Also, you’re a state agency—how can we trust you to report accurately?”

Honestly, I was a little surprised, but I still responded: “We are not promoting Neo-Ottomanism, and we need to broadcast in Arabic to be strong in the region like our competitors Reuters, AFP (Agence France-Presse), and AP (Associated Press). We also publish in English, French, Russian, Bosnian, and Kurdish. Other countries have state agencies too; of course we will report the news just as accurately as they do.”

During an interview on a private television channel in Morocco, I was again confronted with the same question. I gave the same answers once more.

After Morocco, we moved on to Tunisia. We held a similar event there, and interestingly, journalists there asked me the same question. This time, I was even more surprised. Our Tunisian editor said, “These people were trained in France by AFP and work for that agency. We call them the AFP school.”

In fact, Anadolu Agency was becoming active in Africa and the Middle East through an aggressive growth strategy, and AFP was its most important competitor in the region. It was possible that AFP employees were being instructed to ask these questions. However, I encountered the same questions in Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon.

Eventually, I started asking the journalists who posed the question where they worked and where they had been trained. To those from the AFP school, I said the following: “AFP began broadcasting in Arabic in 1969. Since that day, have you ever asked, ‘Is France trying to recolonize us, why is it broadcasting in Arabic?’ AFP is also a state agency—have you ever asked them whether they could broadcast against the French state?”

I didn’t receive any answers—because none of them had ever asked these questions to AFP.

Why is there objection to Türkiye but not to Western countries?

What surprised me was not that AFP or Reuters had these questions directed at us—after all, they were our competitors and did not want us to grow stronger. What puzzled me was that Arab journalists considered it normal for French or American agencies to operate in their countries, but found Türkiye’s broadcasting “suspicious.”

The discourse of “Neo-Ottomanism” was very common at the time. But why wasn’t the same suspicion directed at France, which colonized Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; at Italy in Libya; at Britain in Egypt; or at American agencies in Lebanon? BBC, AFP, AP, and Reuters, all of which have been broadcasting in Arabic for nearly 50 years, have probably never been confronted with such questions.

It was precisely this lack of scrutiny that surprised—and frankly saddened—me.

Türkiye has had historical ties with most of the countries in the region spanning up to 400 years. In the eyes of our Arab brothers, are we a colonial power, or are we a brotherly state of the same religion?

To be honest, I know this is a very long and deep topic of discussion, so I will not go into it.

However, I do know that some of those who object to Türkiye’s presence in the region are heavily influenced by the West. Because those who objected to Türkiye’s rapprochement with the Arabs were similarly influenced by Western state propaganda.

Pro-Türkiye publics and opposing elites

We had opened offices in 22 Arab countries. Most of our staff in these offices were locals. And I must proudly say that our Arab colleagues embraced Anadolu Agency as if it were their own and worked with great dedication. Because we regarded this agency as a shared platform for Muslims and believed it was necessary to compete with Western news agencies.

In every country where we opened an office, we were met with deep affection from ordinary citizens. They saw us as their brothers and supported us in everything we did. We, in turn, treated them no differently than we would a Turk.

However, in countries with more authoritarian regimes, where people were educated in the West and held ultra-nationalist views, we faced similar questions and our work was made more difficult.

We need a new beginning

Our region has been turned into a land of fire. Six of our brotherly countries have been struck by Israel. Parts of three countries have been occupied. And this aggression, this occupation, will not stop. In such an environment, don’t you think we all need one another? Don’t we all have to stand in solidarity to stop US-backed Israel in the region? Otherwise, our countries will be next.

Even in such a situation, there are those who object to the Turkish military’s presence in Syria, Gaza, and Libya—and unfortunately, these are our Muslim brothers. And these same brothers did not object nearly as much to the presence of Italians in Libya, Russians in Syria, or Americans in Gaza. Of course, every country has its own interests; protecting them is everyone’s right. But tell me: in Gaza and Syria, whose interests are most harmed by the presence of Turkish soldiers, and whose interests are served? Considering how loudly Israel is protesting, I think we all know the answer.

We cannot change history. Events that saddened all of us may have occurred there. But a new geopolitical earthquake is taking place in the region, and it will redraw the maps. Israel has turned the land we live on into a hell, and it has become so blinded by rage that it will not hesitate to burn everything in its path. If we want this geopolitical shift to favor Muslim countries, we need to make a new start in our relationships.

Our peoples love one another. Our governments, elites, media, economic actors, and intellectuals must also come to understand one another, to care for one another, and to stand in solidarity. The truth is, we all need each other. We cannot survive otherwise.