Turkey is not against West or Israel, it is just not its puppet anymore

Submitted by Ahmet Seker (Canada), Nov 1, 2009 at 13:25

Dear All,

I am a Turkish citizen. If you want me as a friend you can have me but first you need to respect me. I am Muslim even if I do not practice. I have historical and cultural ties to Iran, Syria, Russia, Europe etc.. We can agree on many things like rights of existence of Israel, being against terrorism, being against attacks on Israeli civilians etc. However if you want me not to have good relations with Iran, not to have good relations with Muslim countries, not to have good relations with Russia etc. and in return you don't even really accept me as one of your own, reject me every time I try to become a part of the Western world, why should I do what you want from me? Do you think this is a rational behaviour for me?

You need the understand one thing: the old days are over. Turkish people are not a bunch of illiterate villagers who can be oppressed by a ultra secular miltary anymore. We would like to be friend with everyone Muslim world, Russia, Europe, US and Israel. If you would like to be friend of us I will be glad but if you want me to cut my relations with all the others in order to become friend with me, I will definetely choose others over you.

About Turkish Israeli relations. Israel needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Israel. What can Israel do for Turkey? Sell a few technologies that we can buy from other countries as well (obviously you do not sell us cutting edge technology). But Turkey has very important symbolic value for Israel. Without Turkey it will not have even one single ally in the region. How can a country be sustainable without having one single friend in the whole region? What if US will not be there for you in 100 years (World changes fast)?

Anyway you may like a Turkey whose people are opressed by its own military and its politicians are the puppets of some generals. You don't need a brain to see that such a structure is against the interests of any country. If you like this structure this means that you are against the people who are opressed by those totalitarian generals. Then you cannot expect those people to love you have sympathy for you. You can start by respecting democracy in Turkey if you would like to be friend with us.

One last thing about a commenter who mentioned that Turkey dared to do these things because of Obama. These changes started during the early years of Bush administration. We did not allowed US military to pass from our soils while invading Iraq. What happened? Nothing. There are not many things that you can do about it. We are a sovereign country and you cannot do anything about Iran or Syria or Russia, who are openly against West. If you want to be friends with us stop threatining and try to respect us. Those times of ruling the world only with violence is over. US cannot even deal with Iraq or Afghanistan. Now is the time for democracy, multilateral policies and peace. If you do not want to see this now, you will learn it the hard way.

Regards,

Ahmet

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