Turkey and Britain

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23749, 22 September 1942, Page 4

Turkey and Britain

The foreign editor of the Turkish semi-official newspaper “ Ulus,” now visiting London, has said that Britain’s victory will be Turkey’s victory and that Turkey is “ in line “ with the democratic Powers.” It is a long time since anyone connected with the Turkish Government has made such a plain statement about foreign policy; and it is therefore possible to believe that the speech, and the prominence being given to the visit of a group of Turkish journalists to Britain, marks a very real improvement in the relations between Turkey and Britain. Those relations, it will be recalled, deteriorated somewhat after the Tobruk disaster and the advance of the Axis armies into Egypt. For the United Nations, however, the crucial aspect of Turkish diplomacy is not Turkey’s attitude to the democracies, whose friendship she has always valued highly, but her attitude to Russia. And this, it must be confessed, is still a source of anxiety. In July a period of strained relations between the two countries which has lasted since the German attack on Russia reached a climax when the Turkish courts sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment two employees of the Russian Embassy charged with attempting to assassinate von Papen, the German Ambassador. Russian newspapers spoke of the “ judicial lawlessness ” of Turkey and “ Pravda ” demanded that “ those responsible for this mon- “ strous miscarriage of justice “ should be called to stern account. ’ At the back of this bickering is Turkey’s suspicion that Russia has designs on the Straits, while Russia suspects that Turkey has already

reached some sort of agreement with the Axis governing the use of the Straits by Axis war vessels. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that unless the atmosphere of ’ suspicion surrounding Turkish-Russian relations can be dispelled, Turkish friendship for Britain has only a limited practical value.