OMM Newsroom
For two weeks, a coordinated campaign of insults, threats and defamation targeting Azerbaijan in Turkish media and on social media has caused justified regret and anger here.
A closer analysis of these developments lays bare how many of those influencing public opinion in the brotherly country and shaping the views of the masses are uneducated and mired in ignorance.
Some political circles in Ankara may ignore the serious damage these radical elements, whom they have nurtured at home, are inflicting on Türkiye and its relations with strategic partners. But history is unforgiving: the consequences of this betrayal will become clear to everyone in the near future.
The Republic of Türkiye, once a model of secularism, modernism and development for the entire Muslim world, is now, unfortunately, being drawn step by step toward a “Taliban” mindset. Those turning the modern, civil and secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk into a de facto theocratic regime, and placing aggressive, radical religious groups in charge of society, will sooner or later realize that they have committed the greatest betrayal of their own people and state.
Those in Azerbaijan who target official Baku’s domestic security rules and call for a coup, chaos and unrest are, in fact, the same as those carrying out a constitutional coup in Türkiye itself. This mob is rapidly turning Türkiye, a secular state under its Constitution, into a clerical society, shouting “Allahu Akbar” as it storms global cafe and restaurant chains and vandalizes civil cultural and art exhibitions. This radicalism, which divides people into religious orders and sects and spreads the belief that “anyone who is not one of us is an enemy,” has created a dangerously polarized society. Those responsible for this polarization will certainly answer to history.
However much we love Türkiye and watch this painful course of events with a heavy heart, we understand that this path is the choice of the brotherly Turkish people. As the people and state of Azerbaijan, we neither interfere nor would we interfere in any country’s internal affairs, system of governance or way of life.
But everyone should understand one thing: We will never allow this wave of ignorance dragging Türkiye toward the abyss to be imposed on Azerbaijan as a model for development. There is no place in this land for those seeking to establish a clerical regime in our country where ignorance prevails and people’s freedoms are suppressed, or to drag us with them into the darkness of the Middle Ages.
As Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has firmly declared: “Everyone should attend to their own affairs; no one should interfere in our way of life, and everyone should look after themselves.”
We will protect our secular, law-based and civil state as the apple of our eye. If brotherly Türkiye does not extinguish the fire of uncontrollable ignorance within its borders, it is, unfortunately, moving step by step toward a major historical tragedy. (Qafqazinfo)
