2023-10-29 11:51:00
Turkey celebrates the centenary of its republic on Sunday in the shadow of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas, without the brilliance hoped for by the population.
“Our Republic is safe and in good hands, as it has never been. Rest in peace,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday morning, addressing the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , when he visited his mausoleum in Ankara, marking the start of the official ceremonies.
Fireworks, naval parade on the Bosphorus, drone demonstrations in the skies of Istanbul, illuminations of emblematic places, from the Hagia Sophia mosque to the ancient Greek site of Ephesus and the concretions of Cappadocia: the program of the celebrations centenary was only revealed a week before the festivities.
This reluctance to celebrate a century of secular republic on the part of the government and the Islamo-conservative party in power does not prevent the Turks from taking out the Turkish flags, bearing the crescent and the star, which they slap on the cars , in windows and on the facades of public and private buildings.
The red competes with the portraits of the founder of the republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – “the father of the Turks”.
Two military parades, in front of the National Assembly in the capital and in Istanbul, will be followed by a naval parade on the Bosphorus. The head of state plans to speak at 7:23 p.m. – a nod to the year of the founding of the republic, 1923 – before the fireworks and drones.
On the eve of this historic meeting, Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose to join the major meeting organized by his party, the AKP, “in support of Palestine” on Saturday at the former Atatürk airport in Istanbul.
A human tide waving Turkish and Palestinian flags – a million and a half people, he assured – listened to him scold the West, “the main culprit of the massacres in Gaza”, which he suspected of wanting create a “crusade atmosphere” against Muslims.
“You mourned the children killed in Ukraine, why this silence in the face of the children killed in Gaza?”, he accused, describing the State of Israel as “an invader and an occupier”.
“Neutrality impossible”
“Israel, we declare you before the whole world a war criminal,” he also insisted on the 22nd day of bombings on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the massacres of 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 .
A virulence which contrasts with its restraint of the first days, when Turkey has just reconnected with Israel, notes Bayram Balci, researcher at CERI-Sciences Po in Paris.
“His neutrality became impossible due to the traditional positioning of Ankara and its party, AKP, in favor of the Palestinian cause,” he believes, recalling the president’s proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood – of which Hamas is is claimed at its creation, in 2007 – and Turkey’s historical links with Jerusalem, which was for four centuries under the domination of the Ottoman Empire.
The head of state also accused Israel of “genocide” after the strike on a hospital in Gaza on October 17, which he immediately attributed to the army of the Hebrew state – without ever returning to it despite the absence of evidence. And he refused to describe Hamas Islamists as “terrorists”.
“Couldn’t (this meeting) wait until next week? The Centenary is once in a century,” Soli Özel, professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, protested this week.
The academic sees this as a clear desire on the part of the Head of State not to pay too much homage to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose secular heritage he is gradually attacking.
The public television channel TRT announced that due to the war in Gaza, it was canceling all entertainment programs initially planned.
29/10/2023 10:49:40 – Istanbul (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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