Ankara terrorist attack is a milestone for Turkey

The terrorist attack that targeted a convoy of military service vehicles in Ankara during the evening rush hour on Wednesday is a damned act that will be a milestone for Turkey. Moreover, it appears that the attack is an overt declaration of war against Turkey. Certainly, Turkey will not let this inhumane attack, which violated all traditional war rules and targeted innocent people, go without response.

From the very beginning, Turkey has announced that it regards the happenings and attacks on the Turkey-Syria border as a direct threat against its national security - which forced the country to set new rules of engagement. In accordance with the amendment of the rules of engagement, Turkey retaliated against the attacks that were directed at Turkish territory from the People's Protection Units (YPG) terrorist positions, as it did when a Russian fighter jet insistently violated its airspace. So, while Turkey has overtly announced what its response will be in such circumstances, those who target the country by means of terrorist organizations in a despicable manner will be given an equivalent return that they deserve. Turkey is aware that this recent terrorist attack is a result of a new war on sharing, which has been declared against itself and the whole of the world must realize it. Turkish intelligence units and security forces have unearthed that the PKK and the YPG perpetrated the terrorist attack in Ankara - which corroborates Turkey's argument that the YPG is a terrorist organization that is an affiliate of the PKK. This substantiation indicates that the Ankara attack is a milestone for Turkey. Turkey will never accept the organization and deployment of the YPG on the Syria border and will strengthen its redlines regarding the issue. This is a clear warning to the U.S. and the EU. As I stated above, this is a war on sharing against Turkey.

However, the process that we are going through is not a classical war on sharing, but a multidimensional one that has military, political, diplomatic, economic and commercial aspects. Therefore, it is a historical process that will determine the 21st century, rather than a cyclical situation.

Let's delve into the depths of the current historical process. Eurasia, the region that includes Turkey, is on the verge of new deeper and more comprehensive socio-economic and geographical structuring than the 19th century. As a new economic power, Turkey has a strong will to return to four basic commercial and economic spheres from which it was pushed to move away with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century and early 20th century. These spheres are trade and energy transits in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa, the Caucasus and the Mediterranean region. I put forward this argument by relying on the existing phenomena and I do not mean that Turkey will return to these areas to establish political sovereignty, but to strengthen its economic and commercial influence. Turkey has made many strategic moves over the past decade, such as taking major steps in the fields of trade and energy transits, displaying a strong will to connect its domestic markets to China's New Silk Road project through middle and southern rail corridors, and creating an energy line between the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Mediterranean through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) is also a major strategic beginning to this end.

Considering all this, the Syrian civil war does not concern Syria alone, as it is essentially a war on sharing markets and energy areas. Here, Russia's main objective is to seize or become a partner to southern transits, which Turkey will control, as an alternative to northern trade and energy transits that it already holds. Turkey is aware of this impossible strategy of Russia's and expects the whole of the world to realize it. Russia's support for the PKK and the YPG terrorist organizations under the pretense of fighting DAESH is a threat not only to Turkey, but global democracy and humanity.

In order to overcome this threat, Turkey aims to switch to a presidential system and highlight a new state tradition with a strategy. Turkey's objective of a transition to a presidential system and a new constitution will be the first steps toward a stronger and more democratic country.

Certainly, we need new definitions, as the emergence of the state as a new economic power will not be an antidemocratic dynamic that brings a closed and autarchic market unlike before. Quite the contrary, we need a new definition of state that deepens and re-defines the open-ended concepts of security, development and democracy and which carries out needed supervisions and regulations to enable market mechanisms to operate in an open and competitive manner outside of national borders as well. This means the stage of axis states, which goes beyond the shallow and closed definition of nation states of the 19th and 20th century. As a country that has the ancient state tradition of this whole region, Turkey is the strongest candidate that is poised to actualize this objective with a presidential system.