ISTANBUL:
Turkiye marked its centenary as a post-Ottoman republic on Sunday with day-long occasions that each honoured the secular republic’s founder and play up the achievement of the Islamic-rooted get together on the helm of the nation since 2002.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was entrance and centre of the considerably muted celebrations held within the shadow of Israel’s escalating warfare in opposition to Hamas in Gaza. The primary spotlight of the day was the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers visiting the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
“Our nation is in protected palms, you could relaxation in peace,” Erdogan mentioned after laying a wreath at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Ataturk, the founder of contemporary Turkey and a army commander whose legacy the present president had vied with throughout his two-decade rule.
“We have now tried to guard your legacy correctly throughout our 21-year interval of administration,” he wrote within the Anitkabir guestbook. “We’re decided to crown the second century of our Republic with the Century of Turkiye.”
Earlier, congratulating the Turkiye residents on the October 29 Republic Day on X, Erdogan spoke of the joy and pleasure on the 100th anniversary of the Republic.” In a separate message, he mentioned his authorities was working to make the nation prepared for the challenges of the approaching century.
Ataturk is lionised throughout Turkish society for driving out invading forces and constructing a model new nation out of the fallen Ottoman Empire’s ruins within the wake of World Warfare I. Turkiye was fashioned as a Westward-facing nation that cast a contemporary new id out of its myriad ethnic teams.
It will definitely grew to become a proud member of the US-led NATO defence alliance and a beacon of democratic hopes within the Center East. However Ataturk’s social and geopolitical transformation of the overwhelmingly Muslim nation created divisions that weigh on Turkish politics to at the present time.
Erdogan tapped into these as he led his conservative Justice and Improvement Get together (AKP) to energy over the leftist Republican Individuals’s Get together (CHP) fashioned by Ataturk. He has spent a lot of the previous decade testing the bounds of Turkiye’s secular traditions in addition to its ties with the West.
Sunday’s celebrations have been partially eclipsed by Erdogan’s more and more fierce assaults in opposition to Israel over its response to the October 7 Hamas assaults. Turkish state tv has additionally scrapped the published of live shows and different festivities due to the “alarming human tragedy in Gaza”.