Turkey finds out one is the loneliest number
The regional and global loneliness Ankara dragged itself into with its foreign policy since 2009 is becoming hazardous with the threat from the Islamic State.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) leaders who have ruled Turkey for the past 12 years generally ignore and sometimes deny the criticism that they have pushed Turkey into loneliness in the region and the world because of their foreign policies.
There is only a single reference of AKP officials accepting — with reservations and justifications of course — that they are the architects of Turkey’s loneliness. It is a 140-letter Turkish declaration in August 2013 in social media by Ibrahim Kalin, then-chief adviser to the prime minister. His tweet read: “The claim that Turkey is alone in the Middle East is not correct. But if this is a criticism then we must say. This is precious loneliness.”
The godfather of this so-called concept of “precious loneliness,” Kalin was appointed deputy secretary-general of the presidency after Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected president. But AKP circles did not adopt his concept, and the child was abandoned and hoped to be forgotten.
This so-called preciousness Kalin attributed to Turkey’s loneliness could at least have had some boast of "standing on the right side of history at the risk of isolation and adhering to ethical superiority."
