TEHRAN: The miracle of democracy in Iran’s neighbourhood

E’temad, Iran
Oct 15 2009

The miracle of democracy in Iran’s neighbourhood

by Ja’far Golabi

In the North West neighbourhood of Iran, very important events are
happening without much noise and advertisement. We will see the result
of these events on the future of the region and the Islamic World.
Over the past few years, Turkey has had many developments in
political, economic and foreign policy arenas. These developments are
improving the position of this country. Over the past few days,
Ankara, in a brave action, signed an agreement in Zurich. According to
this agreement, Turkey would normalize its relations with Armenia.
This agreement will end one century of conflict between the two
countries and they will open their borders in the next two months.

Over the past few years, Turkey has had more than eight per cent
economic growth and it had 19bn dollars income in 2007 only from the
tourism sector. The Islamist government in Turkey have used powerful
and creative diplomacy and they have sought to resolve all their old
challenges. Every day they seek to find new capacities and
opportunities to increase their country’s position. There are two
important issues in resolving conflicts with the Armenians; firstly
the Armenians’ massive killing in the First World War by the Ottoman
Empire and the Karabagh conflict. The agreement has been reached
because of the development of Turks’ active diplomacy. It is a big
step which will increase the development of this country in the near
future.

However, why is Turkey in such an inventive position? It is resolving
its regional problems with confidence and it does not propose joining
the EU like the past. It is not searching its development route only
in the EU joining. The issue is clear: Turkey after the tenure of
Islamists, improved real democracy. The Turks know, see, and feel that
Turkey is in the process of inventiveness, reaching capabilities,
welfare and repute. Till yesterday, the Turkish military believed in a
kind of democracy which was lead by others as their solution.
Governments came and went with minimum votes and weak coalitions. They
were not able to implement strategic actions. After various weaknesses
of the governments, which were supported by the army and after
dismissal of the first Islamist government of Arbakan, the military
had serious challenges. Therefore, it obliged to accept real and
serious democracy.

The majority came to the arena and instead of creating a weak
coalition government, the prime minster and presidential posts were
given to those who were representatives of the majority and the marvel
of diplomacy was seen.

The domestic political stability and social stability were created
according to people’s wishes. This issue improved the government and
the government started to look aboard. It started to develop itself
with stability. Where it was needed to refer to people, they were
there. People determined their density and their officials according
to their wishes. So, we can see in Turkey the development and real
power which was achieved without expensive costs. This is the easiest
way to win over the challenges.

Our dear Iran is higher than Turkey in culture, politics, social
issues, economy, geographical position, and in moral issues. Iran has
more capacities than Turkey. If these capacities become real, the
world will praise us and victory will be ours from all sides. This
prosperity will be reached only by multilateral respect to society and
people’s legal demands.

The miracle will come with people seriously participation in
[choosing] their destiny and we will have domestic stability, foreign
creativity and multilateral power, such as in the rest of the world.

Today, the military of Turkey is grateful of the domestic power and
stability of the country. They are investigating the threats even if
the threats are not in their countries. If in our country the
conscience of the expert and the society understand the realities and
find the reason of country’s decay after decades, then they should try
to improve it. In this case, all political conflicts and disagreements
will be placed under national interests and the red line will be
people’s vote and desire. This issue should never be ignored and the
prosperity and power of everybody will be in respecting this red line.
With the votes of Muslim people, the religion, behaviour and morality
of society will be at the highest position and the realities will be
achieved in the society.

[translated from Persian]