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Erdogan Vows Victory over ‘Imperialists’ on Türkiye's Centenary

People pass under the Turkish Flag on Istiklal Street, Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP)
People pass under the Turkish Flag on Istiklal Street, Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP)
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Erdogan Vows Victory over ‘Imperialists’ on Türkiye's Centenary

People pass under the Turkish Flag on Istiklal Street, Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP)
People pass under the Turkish Flag on Istiklal Street, Istanbul, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP)

President Recep Tayyip vowed on Sunday to stand up to "imperialist" forces as he led Turkish centenary celebrations in the shadow of Israel's escalating war with Hamas militants in Gaza.  

Erdogan took center stage during day-long events that both honored the republic's secular founder and played up the achievement of his Islamic-rooted party that has run Türkiye since 2002.  

"Our country is in safe hands, you may rest in peace," Erdogan said after laying a wreath at the mausoleum of military commander and statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

"We will be successful and victorious. No imperialist power can prevent this," Erdogan added in an evening address in Istanbul.

Ataturk is lionized across Turkish society for driving out invading forces and building a brand new nation out of the fallen Ottoman Empire's ruins in the wake of World War I.

He formed as a Westward-facing nation that stripped religion from its state institutions and tried to forge a modern new identity out of its myriad ethnic groups.  

It eventually became a proud member of the US-led NATO defense alliance.

"We are Ataturk's daughters, we are the children of the republic," pensioner Nerguzel Asik said after watching a military parade in Istanbul.  

"We feel 'Turkishness' in every way," student Selin Gunes agreed.  

Social transformation  

But Ataturk's social and geopolitical transformation of the overwhelmingly Muslim nation created divisions that weigh on Turkish politics to this day.  

Erdogan tapped into these as he led his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power over the leftist Republican People's Party (CHP) formed by Ataturk.  

He has spent much of the past decade testing the limits of Türkiye's secular traditions, as well as its ties with the West.

These competing forces were on full display as Erdogan moved from honoring Türkiye's past to celebrating his own government's achievements while he was prime minister and president.

Erdogan ended the day by overseeing 100 navy ships pass through the Bosphorus while screaming fighter jets performed aerobatics overhead.  

" Türkiye is a country that helps those who have no one, from the Balkans to the Caucasus, from Palestine to wherever there is a need," Erdogan told the nation.  

"The Palestinian rally (in Istanbul) was a part of this."  

Palestinian cause  

Sunday's celebrations have been partially eclipsed by Erdogan's increasingly fierce attacks against Israel over its response to the October 7 Hamas attacks.  

The militants indiscriminately killed 1,400 people, most of them civilians in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor rave party, and took 220 hostages in a surprise raid that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the worst "since the Holocaust".  

Israel has retaliated with relentless air strikes and an unfolding ground offensive that the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says has claimed more than 8,000 lives, most of them civilians.

Turkish state television has also scrapped the broadcast of concerts and other festivities because of the "alarming human tragedy in Gaza".  

Erdogan announced that 1.5 million people had come out for a pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul on Saturday that ended up drowning out national television coverage of the centenary.  

Erdogan accused the Israeli government of behaving like a "war criminal" and trying to "eradicate" Palestinians.  

His remarks prompted Israel to announce the withdrawal of all diplomatic staff for a "re-evaluation" of relations.  

Turbulent spell  

The emerging diplomatic crisis further pulled attention away from Türkiye's birthday party and onto Erdogan's handling of global affairs.  

Türkiye has suffered a turbulent spell of relations with Western allies since Erdogan survived a failed coup attempt in 2016 that he blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.

Some analysts saw Saturday's pro-Palestinian rally as part of Erdogan's tacit effort to undermine Ataturk's secular vision.  

But one survey suggested that Erdogan's comments play to his conservative core of supporters and not the public at large.  

The Metropoll survey showed just 11.3 percent of the respondents saying they "back Hamas" while more than half preferring to see Türkiye either stay "neutral" or mediate.

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Bittersweet Return for Syrians with Killed, Missing Relatives 

Syrian activist and former refugee Wafa Mustafa shows a picture of her missing father Ali on her phone after attending a demonstration in Damascus on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
Syrian activist and former refugee Wafa Mustafa shows a picture of her missing father Ali on her phone after attending a demonstration in Damascus on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
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Bittersweet Return for Syrians with Killed, Missing Relatives 

Syrian activist and former refugee Wafa Mustafa shows a picture of her missing father Ali on her phone after attending a demonstration in Damascus on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
Syrian activist and former refugee Wafa Mustafa shows a picture of her missing father Ali on her phone after attending a demonstration in Damascus on January 1, 2025. (AFP)

Wafa Mustafa had long dreamed of returning to Syria but the absence of her father tarnished her homecoming more than a decade after he disappeared in Bashar al-Assad's jails.

Her father Ali, an activist, is among the tens of thousands killed or missing in Syria's notorious prison system, and whose relatives have flocked home in search of answers after Assad's toppling last month by opposition forces.

"From December 8 until today, I have not felt any joy," said Mustafa, 35, who returned from Berlin.

"I thought that once I got to Syria, everything would be better, but in reality everything here is so very painful," she said. "I walk down the street and remember that I had passed by that same corner with my dad" years before.

Since reaching Damascus she has scoured defunct security service branches, prisons, morgues and hospitals, hoping to glean any information about her long-lost father.

"You can see the fatigue on people's faces" everywhere, said Mustafa, who works as a communications manager for the Syria Campaign, a rights group.

In 2021, she was invited to testify at the United Nations about the fate of Syria's disappeared.

The opposition who toppled Assad freed thousands of detainees nearly 14 years into a civil war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

Mustafa returned to Branch 215, one of Syria's most notorious prisons run by military intelligence, where she herself had been detained simply for participating in pro-democracy protests in 2011.

She found documents there mentioning her father. "That's already a start," Mustafa said.

Now, she "wants the truth" and plans to continue searching for answers in Syria.

"I only dream of a grave, of having a place to go to in the morning to talk to my father," she said. "Graves have become our biggest dream".

- A demand for justice -

In Damascus, Mustafa took part in a protest demanding justice for the disappeared and answers about their fate.

Youssef Sammawi, 29, was there too. He held up a picture of his cousin, whose arrest and beating in 2012 prompted Sammawi to flee for Germany.

A few years later, he identified his cousin's corpse among the 55,000 images by a former military photographer codenamed "Caesar", who defected and made the images public.

The photos taken between 2011 and 2013, authenticated by experts, show thousands of bodies tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.

"The joy I felt gave way to pain when I returned home, without being able to see my cousin," Sammawi said.

He said his uncle had also been arrested and then executed after he went to see his son in the hospital.

"When I returned, it was the first time I truly realized that they were no longer there," he said with sadness in his voice.

"My relatives had gotten used to their absence, but not me," he added. "We demand that justice be served, to alleviate our suffering."

While Assad's fall allowed many to end their exile and seek answers, others are hesitant.

Fadwa Mahmoud, 70, told AFP she has had no news of her son and her husband, both opponents of the Assad government arrested upon arrival at Damascus airport in 2012.

She fled to Germany a year later and co-founded the Families For Freedom human rights group.

She said she has no plans to return to Syria just yet.

"No one really knows what might happen, so I prefer to stay cautious," she said.

Mahmoud said she was disappointed that Syria's new authorities, who pledged justice for victims of atrocities under Assad's rule, "are not yet taking these cases seriously".

She said Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa "has yet to do anything for missing Syrians", yet "met Austin Tice's mother two hours" after she arrived in the Syrian capital.

Tice is an American journalist missing in Syria since 2012.

Sharaa "did not respond" to requests from relatives of missing Syrians to meet him, Mahmoud said.

"The revolution would not have succeeded without the sacrifices of our detainees," she said.