‘West alienates itself from rest of the world,’ says Türkiye’s presidential spokesman

Türkiye's presidential spokesman said that the West is alienating itself from the rest of the world.

In an interview with German weekly Die Zeit, Ibrahim Kalin said that "The war in Ukraine, relations with China, migration, fight against terrorism, the shift of the world's economic center of gravity from the West to the East, I believe there is lack of strategic thinking in most Western circles."

"Will Europe follow the footsteps of the US in everything? Or will Europe develop its own thinking, its own economic policy, and its own defense policy? How will the US respond to Europe's stance?" asked Kalin, adding

"You've seen the discussion that French President Emmanuel Macron started while talking about strategic autonomy for Europe during his visit to China. This is a big question. And then the question of how to deal with Russia."

Kalin said that everyone supports Ukraine and its territorial integrity and opposes the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory, including Türkiye.

"But how to deal with the war now is a question to which different countries give different answers. There are some countries that are very aggressive towards Russia," he said.

When asked which countries he meant, Kalin said that those countries are known, and there was no need to name them.

Kalin said that a few countries, such as Germany and France, began to wonder how long this war could last, "And there are other countries that ask more questions."

"First of all, why are we in this war? There is also a great deal of disagreement in the West about how to deal with China. Some take a very aggressive approach. There is no solution yet on how to deal with Russia and we are already seeing this aggressive attitude towards China," said Kalin.

"We are very worried about this. In all these areas, there is a debate about how Europe wants to position itself as a global player in the 21st century," he added.

Asked what role Turkey plays in this, Kalin said: "We want to have an honest discussion with our allies about what kind of a common future we have. We are part of NATO, we want to join the EU, but we want a relationship of equality based on mutual interest and respect."