"Together to Great Goals": the AK Party's 26th consultation meeting

The 26th of the AK Parti's institutional and by now traditional six-monthly consultation and evaluation meetings was held this weekend in Afyonkarahisar. The AK Parti, which is marking its 16th anniversary, has continued these meetings with full participation for 16 years without fail, except under election conditions. We can say that these meetings perform a function that continually nourishes, repairs and reproduces the party's institutional identity.

The most important feature of this meeting was undoubtedly that the leader of the movement, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was attending for the first time in three and a half years since the last meeting he attended before being elected president. The Afyonkarahisar camp was the scene of the party members, who came with their families, meeting on this occasion the leader they had longed for.

The AK Parti came to know single-party rule only 15 months after its founding. Because of its status as the single party that has governed Turkey ever since, this camp also has the character of a camp in which both the problems of the country and the world are discussed and solutions to them are sought to be developed.

In its first years in power, even though it came with a success that few parties are granted, the AK Parti met very tough resistance. For a long time this resistance tried to prevent the AK Parti from carrying out the reforms it desired. The performance it put forward against this resistance to what it wanted to do in the field of human rights and democratization forced the AK Parti for a long time into the strange role of an "opposition in government."

As we have always said, it was in fact this tension that enabled the AK Parti to keep renewing itself and that always kept it vigorous as a hope in the eyes of the people. Within this tension the AK Parti removed all obstacles to freedom of expression in Turkey and went beyond even European standards in democratization.

This statement will of course sound odd, because this is still the point on which the EU criticizes us most. But in truth we have lived long enough to see that taking the EU as a reference on the standards of democratization and freedom of expression is dragging us to complete disaster. On the fight against terror, we now understand very clearly that what the EU countries expect from Turkey is not really democratization and freedom of expression but nothing other than a shield to protect their own collaborator terrorists.

Their stances, exposed on 15 July, and their protective approach toward members of both the PKK and FETÖ cannot be interpreted otherwise. On the other hand, the state-of-emergency measures they put into effect without hesitation and without caring about anyone's criticism when they themselves face the slightest terror incident leave them no right to say a word to Turkey.

That is a separate matter; let us return to what the AK Parti did as the "opposition in government" in Turkey. For many years the AK Parti, in response to the resistance of the opposition facing it, signed what were virtually silent revolutions. Within this resistance it was repeatedly subjected to coup attempts or preparations. Countless assassination attempts were made on its leader. It was subjected to a closure case. Just when it thought it had put the country fully on an even keel economically and democratically, in 2013 it was subjected one after another first to the Gezi revolt, then to the 17-25 December judicial coup, then to the Kobani uprising, then to the operation of the 7 June evil alliance, then to the 15 July coup, and in between to countless economic attacks.

Most of these attacks took place in periods when the AK Parti each time fell prey to the notion that "now we have become the government." These attacks to which the AK Parti was subjected in situations where the resistance to democratization was thought to have been eliminated made it fully understand that the resistance within would not easily end and that the root of this resistance was not inside the country. Indeed, explaining that resistance today with the now customary conceptualization of the "Kemalist order" or the status quo no longer has any relevance at all. The energy source of the resistance is not inside the country but outside, in the world's established system itself. The resistance is no longer to the AK Parti but, of course, to the whole of Turkey that the AK Parti governs.

Just as the AK Parti used to draw its strength and freshness from its opposition to the decrepit, hidden, deep power inside the country, today Turkey draws its strength from the oppositional position it represents against the decrepit power in the world. That position puts it at the target of all the activity around us. That is why in his closing speech at yesterday's consultation meeting President Erdoğan said: "Those who say that what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Libya, North Africa, the Caucasus and the Balkans has nothing to do with Turkey either understand nothing or know everything and are part of these attacks, all of which target Turkey."

Fifteen years ago Turkey was relatively inward-looking and spent most of its problems on its own domestic agenda. Fifteen years later Turkey is a country whose economy is 17th in the world and which has a role and influence in world politics that cannot be ignored. That is why, just as no internal matter of ours can be independent of the world, we are in a position where we cannot remain indifferent to anything that happens in the world. This position of course places more responsibility and new roles on us. We must understand this role well, work well, and enlarge our goals. That is why the title of this consultation meeting was set as "Together to Great Goals."

At home, toward our own citizens, after 15 years in power, we have no excuse to take refuge in by saying "the status quo or resistance facing us."

We have to be the best and always be good.

Of course there is much to be done and said on this.

We will continue to do and to say it.