Turkey lights the iconic Atakule Tower to commemorate Holocaust victims
Turkey is the first Islamic state to recognize Israel. It early on transformed the conflict from an Israeli Islamist to an Israeli Arab, and removed all non-Arab Muslim countries from the equation in favor of Israel. This was later reflected in Turkey’s mediation to build Israeli relations with non-Arab Muslim countries, especially in Asia and Central Asia. This became clear to all because of the rapprochement Turkey is showing every day, including the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust.
The Turkish capital Ankara commemorated the victims of the Holocaust on Thursday evening by lighting up the famous Atakule tower in the city center.
“We remember” was written on the tower in Turkish and English, as part of an event organized by the Presidency of the Turkish Presidential Liaison Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Holocaust” is a term used to describe campaigns by the Nazi German Government and some of its allies, for the purpose of persecuting and liquidating Jews in Europe during the Second World War (1939-1945).
On January 27, 1945, Allied forces liberated Auschwitz camp in Poland, where historians say Nazi forces killed more than a million people, most of them Jews and political prisoners.
In 1958, Ankara and Tel Aviv signed a secret military-intelligence cooperation and partnership agreement called the “Ghost Charter”, under which Turkey would help Israel against Arab states in exchange for Israel’s assistance to Turkey to counter the Soviet Union’s activities in the Black Sea and Central Asia.
Turkey stood by the Ghost Charter agreement with all of its military and intelligence institutions to support Israel in all of its wars against Arab states, especially the wars of 1967 and 1973, but Erdogan’s momentum for Turkish-Israeli relations after he took office in 2002 was the major “strategic shift”.
Contradiction has become, in both word and deed, the real headline of all Turkish statements and practices since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2002; he openly declared himself an enemy of Israel, and facts and documents confirm that he is the biggest supporter of Tel Aviv since he came to power and to this day in various political and economic fields.
