What is this arrogance towards Turkey at the Arab League Summit?

While we in Turkey were busy with the local elections, the 30th Ordinary Arab League Summit was being held in Tunisia. Then again, even had we not been busy with our own elections, the meeting had no outcome or will capable of offering a remedy to any problem facing the world or the region.

Although Tunisian President Essebsi, the host of the meeting, proposed the title "Summit of Decision and Solidarity," it did not seem possible for either a decision or an example of solidarity to emerge from it.

The Arab League has no solution, or will to find one, for the most intractable problems occupying the Arab world today. At a Summit with no effect or validity beyond a meeting brushed through every year just to show off to friends, nothing could be said on the Palestinian issue, for instance, beyond a few routine official words. Not a single "decision" nor an example of "solidarity" was displayed that could remedy the problem under way among the Gulf countries. Against the decision of America annexing the Golan, no strong condemnatory stance was taken; they were content merely with affirming that "the Golan is Syrian land."

How could the Summit possibly manifest a will? King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, regarded as the most powerful figure of the Summit, although he had arrived in Tunisia two days before the Summit, left the Summit halfway through the opening session and returned to his country, thereby showing the importance he gave to the Summit, or rather withheld from it. With the Tunisia visit being the aim and the Summit seeming a pretext, it remained a Summit of mere formality for the rest as well.

Likewise, Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani suddenly left the Summit during the speech of the Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, before delivering his own speech in the opening session. Sources close to the Emir relate that this abrupt decision was a reaction to the Secretary General's accusing Turkey of interfering in the internal affairs of the Arabs.

That Arab countries, who are dealing with a thousand and one problems of their own and who have endured every kind of interference by the ABD and European countries, even their rule and exploitation, in their own lands, knowingly regard Turkey as a "foreigner" only shows how high above, and how far removed from, the grassroots of the Arab people the rulers at the Arab Summit have risen. None of these leaders is closer to their own peoples than Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for instance. Perhaps this is one cause of the unease, but since the occasion has arisen, let us point out a couple of facts concerning this subject of "the internal affairs of the Arabs and Turkey's place."

Turkey is single-handedly bearing the entire burden of the humanitarian problems arising from the Arab world's own internal problems, from the oppression that the Arab rulers, that is, those who spent most of their time at this Summit dozing, have inflicted on their own peoples. With a purely humanitarian stance, it hosts 3.5 million people who had to flee their country so as not to be among the one million Arabs killed by Bashar al-Assad, an Arab leader.

Likewise, with a purely humanitarian stance, it has opened its doors to tens of thousands of people fleeing Egypt, the largest country of the Arab world, so as not to be among those whom the putschists unjustly killed, tortured or imprisoned.

Turkey is the country that is involved only at the level of humanitarian aid in the war in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two richest countries of the Arab world at present, are waging senselessly, and many people who were victims of that war and became refugees are now finding peace and well-being in Turkey.

Turkey regards as brothers the Arabs who are afforded not the slightest value by their own "Arab" rulers and who are subjected to oppression, and recognizes in its own country the rights and the law that they do not see in theirs, showing them respect and affection. In fact, in this way it also sends the Arab leaders a strong message on how they ought to treat their own people.

Yet the Arab leaders gathered at the Summit accuse Turkey of interfering in the internal affairs of the Arabs. Who is this "Arab country," anyway?

Come on, the total of those who have come to Turkey merely from troubled areas exceeds 4 million, and this figure alone is greater than the population of many of the Arab countries that were most vocal at this Summit.

On top of that, when Turkish Republic citizens of Arab origin, whose number is estimated at 4-5 million, are counted, we are talking about an Arab population of 8-10 million. How many of the countries attending the Arab League Summit have such an Arab population?

I state it clearly from here: with both the population it shelters and its effectiveness in taking up all the problems of its Arab brothers, Turkey now has more right than anyone to speak even on behalf of the Arab world. This right is in fact already sufficiently and duly recognized in practice by the Arab peoples. So much so that the legitimacy, in the eyes of their own peoples, of those who make speeches ignoring this right may become a matter of debate.

This right and influence can neither be granted nor taken away by some of the names at the Summit. Right is born of labor.

Our advice for the next Summit meeting: let the Arab leaders address how they will secure for the Arab-Muslim peoples the human rights, the dignified life and the prosperity that they deserve.

It is a real subject for debate. Even for this debate, it would suffice for them to take as an example the rights Turkey provides to Arabs. If they set out on such a beneficial path, Turkey stands ready to give them every kind of contribution. Because the Turkish state knows very well that keeping the state alive passes through keeping the human being alive, and it opens all the experience arising from this knowledge to sharing.