On Nov. 10 Turkey will observe the 80th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. Yet on that same date his latest successor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be paying a visit to Paris for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. A century ago, Ataturk — an Ottoman Empire war hero and respected general — was preoccupied with a retreat from a region he commanded in northern Syria. Now the longest-serving Turkish leader, Erdogan, has been invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to attend a Nov. 11 celebration marking the end of a war where the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side.
In a sense, Macron is returning the invitation of Erdogan for the Syria summit held last month that gathered German, Russian and French leaders — the big guys — in Istanbul. A century ago, Ataturk was in Aleppo, commanding an army, and 100 years later, “the big guys” met in Istanbul to decide on the fate of Aleppo’s environs.
