The story of a successful operation

On Sunday morning, Turkey woke up to a development that has come to occupy the country's agenda. In the early hours of Sunday night at the General Staff headquarters, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu together with Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz and Chief of General Staff Necdet Özel, meticulously followed a crucial operation as it unfolded. In this overnight operation, Turkey successfully evacuated the Tomb of Süleyman Shah in Syria, which is the only Turkish exclave.

From my point of view, this operation carries a significant message. First of all, it should be noted that in addition to the spiritual and historic value of the Tomb Süleyman Shah for Turkey, it functioned as an important symbol while Turkey was heading toward the March 30 local elections in 2014. At midnight on March 27, the most serious illegal wiretappings by the Gülen Movement were uncovered, and the movement's parallel structure was set to overthrow the elected government with the aid of those wiretapping activities. This time, the organization, which illegally listened to all kinds of encrypted phones, tapped a secret meeting at the Foreign Ministry headquarters and then leaked the recordings. At the meeting, the government was making plans to rescue Turkish troops at the Tomb of Süleyman Shah from the Islamic State of Iran and al-Sham (ISIS). By leaking the tapes, the parallel structure tried to distort this crucial matter and, in doing so, put the lives of those soldiers in danger.

So this operation carries two different messages. Firstly, it demonstrates that the plans to paralyze Turkey's operational power via the March 27 wiretappings have been completely subverted. Secondly, the propaganda suggesting that Turkey is joining hands with ISIS has been disproven once again. How can one claim that Turkey cooperates with an organization that threatens its own territory and troops?

With the exception of one soldier who died accidentally, the midnight operation, which was conducted perfectly, ended with no casualties. The operation has once again shown the operational power of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the success of the Special Forces. It also proved Turkey's sensitivity to its values, as Turkish forces planted a Turkish flag before lowering the previous one and held a religious ceremony while moving the tomb.

Interestingly, however, far from welcoming it with gladness, opposition parties have used this rescue operation, which should be considered a national matter, as a tool with which to attack the government. If such an operation was conducted in the U.S. and U.S. troops were rescued from an enemy with a successful operation at the crack of dawn, Hollywood would make several movies about it, the U.S. president would deliver a victory speech to the whole world via live broadcasts and all Americans would applaud it with tears of joy. Although Turkey rescued its soldiers successfully, opposition parties are still being negative by talking about Turkish territory in a strange manner. But the opposition's claims about the territory are fallacious because the Tomb of Süleyman Shah has been relocated two times previously. This time it was moved to another spot in Syria and will be reinstated to its previous location when security is assured.

Our failure to share common joys and sorrows means that we are losing our national characteristics as a country. Unfortunately, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) target our character as a nation, and this is unbecoming for Turkey. Furthermore, they do not have any real objections and sometimes even ask for support from the West to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while at other times they cling to fascist discourse about territory. I believe that the opposition base will overturn this destructive policy.