Happy Victory Week!

My fellow citizens, dear friends,

90 years ago, on 26 August 1922, the Turkish army launched a massive attack against the occupation forces in western Anatolia. This was the start of an operation that would result, on 9 September 1922, in liberating of Izmir from the occupation the national army. Thus, we celebrate the week comprising 26 – 30 August every year as Victory Week.

The history has examined, studied and analysed at length how this victory came about. Our national army, created, nay, almost conjured from not the resources the Anatolian people had, but with what they did not realize they had and placed under the command of our great leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was actually of the stuff legends were made of, especially between 26 August and 9 September 1922. This brilliant military victory paved the way for the biggest legend of all, the creation of our Republic.

This is not simply the story of Turkish army’s driving the occupation forces from Anatolia. This victory has been the first statement in the narrative addressed to our then imperialist opponents that Turkish nation had no other desire but to establish its own, free and independent nation state, the Republic of Turkey, in succession to the Ottoman Empire which had been physically shrinking down, since the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699 to its natural borders as defined by the National Pact, adopted by the last popularly elected national representatives in 1920. This message was clearly understood by those who acted against Turks at behest of imperialist powers but quickly realized that their own interests dictated becoming and staying friends and cooperate with Turkey. The fact that Turkey has become allies and started a long process of political and economic integration with those powers whom we had fought all over former Ottoman soil during WWI, who suffered devastating losses against us and who occupied Izmir one year after the end of the Great War and Istanbul a year later is the best evidence attesting this realization.

Therefore, we celebrate now and will forever do, with the same excitement and fervour of 90 years ago, our Victory Week not as a primitive vaunt on our past enemies who suffered a military defeat against us, but as the first successful step in our quest to establish our free and independent nation state, as a result of the firm stance of the whole Anatolian people against imperialism.