What women need is to be able to be equivalent, rather than equal. Because equality turns the victim into an oppressor and vice versa. - Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

You cried out when 50,000 refugees were at the Kapikule border... You started asking what you would do if Turkey would open the gates. Look at me — if you go further, those border gates will be open. You should know that.

Likewise, we made legitimate and necessary demands upon NATO, as multiple civil wars broke out in Turkey’s neighbourhood, to ensure the security of our borders and airspace as well as human security, as the largest refugee wave since World War II had emerged in the region. Largely abandoned, our country dealt with all those crises by itself and paid a high price during that effort. Ironically, any steps taken under the NATO umbrella would have prepared the alliance for future conflicts and crises at its borders.

The threats against international peace and security changed in recent years and that led many to believe that NATO was an “obsolete” organisation that ceased to serve its purpose. Emmanuel Macron even said in 2019 that the alliance was experiencing “brain death”. The same folks questioned Turkey’s role within NATO. That blend of extraordinary wishful thinking and extreme strategic myopia cost the alliance many years.