Turkey not ‘lonely’ but dares to do so for its values and principles, says PM adviser

ISTANBUL

Top foreign policy adviser to the Turkish prime minister İbrahim Kalın. Hürriyet Photo

İbrahim Kalın, a top foreign policy adviser to the Turkish prime minister said he had used the phrase “precious loneliness” as a way to express Turkey’s “honorable stance” against coups and slaughters, as opposed to the world’s ignorance of the conflicts in Egypt and Syria.

Kalın said that sometimes one had to stand alone to defend values one finds right and if this stance were to be described as loneliness then it would be a “precious loneliness,” Turkish daily Star reported yesterday.

“At some point in history there comes a time where you stand by the truth all alone when the world keeps silent against coups and slaughters. You do not give up your principles and values because your allies and other countries do not stand by you,” Kalın said. “Actually this is not being alone but presenting an honorable stance.”

Kalın said he had used “precious loneliness” also as taking the risk of being alone for the sake of defending the values one deems right. “Once you are left with such a choice, the right move is to stick to your principles which are correct both for your national interests and the international policy. If this places you in a different position than the rest this is a ‘value-centered loneliness’ and this actually is a precious loneliness,” Kalın said, adding that this choice did not mean an isolation from the rest of the world.

Kalın said that Turkey was not left alone, on the contrary to what has been expressed, but that some people were spelling disaster. He said the same thing had been done when the March 1st memorandum was declined in the Turkish Parliament that was to give permission to the Turkish troops to combat in Iraq in 2003, and the Davos incident at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2009, where Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres over Israel’s policy on the Gaza Strip.

“Turkey is not alone either in its region or in the global politics. Not only states and international organizations but also [ordinary] people look at what Turkey is going to do,” said Kalın.