TURKEY'S HATRED

Hokitika Guardian, 15 July 1940, Page 7

TURKEY'S HATRED

OF ITALY, GOES BACK TO 1911

Turkey, who is pledged to help the Allies in the Mediterranean, is not yet in the war. She is now reported to be considering signing a non-aggression pact ' with Russia. But it is certain that Turkey s deepseated hostility to Italy will influence strongly her Mediterranean Sea policy.

Some years ago at the Turkish Embassy in Rome 1 had a long talk with Jsm'et Inonu, then Pri(ine Minister now President of Turkey.

He was staying with llustu Aria, . Turkish Foreign Minister in the ital- | ain capital. And he was in Rome with j the idea of improving the somewhat strained Ltalian-Turkish Relations. J Inonu was then about 50, broad- j shouldered, white-haired and raou- • stacked. Even from a distance he looked the complete soldier in civilian clothes. He was most congenial to me. “Turkey must he reborn,” he said. | “Every Turk must forget that he had j ancestors, and must think only ol the- | fact that he will have grandchildren! , That is what the Glum wants, and that is what all Turks want. The Ghazi, or leader, Mustapha i Komal. with whom Ismet Inonu was J flighting in the Turkish struggle for j freedom, which lasted from 1919 to 1922. did his best to see that the Turks j wont steadfastly forward. | When 1 was in Turkey later I walked among the mosques and the dirty, hut picturt’sque, streets of Constantinople, and the modern iron and glass buildings of the new capital, Ankara. Then T understood entirely the immense change that the Turkish people had undergone m the past 20 veais. Now the Latin alphabet bas replaced the Arab alphabet: the women no longer wear the veil, the men have renounced tin' lev. and tin ban. Monogamy is practiced: the omn 1 - potence of the Mohammedan priests is gone; 30.000 elementary schools have been built. f J liesc, with univeisit ios, land reform,, and modern factories and mines, all show how the Turkish people have progressed. * * * Tn 20 years Turkey has advanced centuries. As an , example of the emancipation of the women there was Rahiba Goklien, daughter of Kemal Ataturk. Rhe became a flying officer in the air force. Kemal Ataturk. or the Grey Wolf, as his fellow-soldiers used to call him. died in November. .1938. The whole country mourned for him. The work of Kemal Ataturk is continued by Tsmct Itrmu. The Prosidem of Turkey is now 50 voars old. Tie h the father of three children, and like l to talk about them, even at the most important conferences on foreign ct home affairs. « T minn. like Kemal, i« a professional soldier. He attended the military ac

atlemy in Smyrna, and after the revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 lie was sent to Yemen.

During the Great War he was an officer of the Turkish General Staff, I and in 1919. after the occupation of Constantinople-, he fled in the uniform of a private to Ankara, where he met Mustapha Kernel. When Komal, in 191.9, in Rivas, hoisted the flag of Turkish resistance against Greek invasion, the Great National Assembly appointed Inonu chief of staff of the army. One of his greatest successes was the victory of Inonu, but lie stood by his leader in the decisive' battles of Sakharia and Smyrna, too. In 1922 he signed the truce with the Allies. In 1922-23 Jho became Foreign Minister, and later Prime Minister. Komal Ataturk and Lsmct Inonu got on very well with each other, though T-hoir characters differed in many ways. Kemal would not tolerate ct iticism, while the first act of the noV'' president of the Republic was >o form a parliamentary opposition. The members of the- opposition also belong to the People’s Party, as do the supporters of the Government. But •hey are not hound by the party decisions, and as members oi an Independent Group” enjoy a certain iiicdom of criticism. * Q * I The Turkish People’s Party is a strange body. It is a typical cintinl | party ,which when looked at from the | left ' seems very conservative, and j from the right very radical. In j reality, this policy works out very well. The home policy of modern Turkey is directed by great social and economic aims. She wants to improve the lot of ' the Anatolian peasant, suppressed and exploited during the rule of the .sultans, by means of land reform and State subsidies. Turkey is now in the last yo°r of the s< omul live-year economic plan. The Turkey of the sultans had no real industry. In the past 29 years there has been a great improvement in this field, too, hut lack of capital mde industrialisation. as well as the exploitation of the Turkish soil, which is excel din My ficli in iron, coal, and manganese ores, very difficult. The leading classes—the intolligcn- ! sia of Turkey are not very strong yet. But, year by year, the universities of Constantinople and Ankara semi forth new groups of learned young men. In the past PO years. Turkey’s foreign policy has had two main objectives. The first was to maintain good •■elat'ons with Russia and secure the equilibrium of the- Balkans and the Mediterrn noan. The Ttirk’sh-Pn : s‘a n relations had been undisturbed until last autumn. Thru Stalin sup-os!'"! a non-aggress-ion pact, one condition Ik'mit that only the warships of the Black Rea Powers should be allowed through the Dardanelles.

Turkey refused this Haim, obviously suggested by Berlin, and on October 19, 19119, made a mutual assistance pact with Britain and France

. Since then, Russia has tried > to improve her relations with Turkey, and recently both countries have withdrawn troops from the Russo-T'urkish frontier.

Oil the other han<l, relations between Conn any Italy, anti Turkey have become worse m the last few months. Because of Fifth Column activities, . the Turkish Government- was forced to expell dozens of Germans and Italians from Turkey.

Italo-Turkisli antagonism goes back to 1911. In that year Italian troops attacked and occupied Tripoli and Libya.

This war showed the fatal weakness of the Turkish Empire. Following the war o fthe Balkans, which only increased Turkey's, troubles, she' lost Salonika, Macedonia, and Albania. During the Great War, .Italy claimed the most fertile part of Turkey, Anatolia, and in the Treaty ol Serves Italy received important privileges on Turkish territories. The new Turkey could not forget what Italy had done in the past. Borne tried persistently to win the friendship of Ankara, hut Turkey never could—and never will see a friend in Italy.