The Embassy of Turkey in Moldova on November 10 commemorated 76 years of the death of the founder of the modern Turkish state and its President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The event was attended by representatives of the Turkish diaspora and Moldovan historians. The invitees observed a moment of silence and viewed the short film “Ataturk’s legacy”, which is about the life and work of the father of the Turkish nation, IPN reports.
Turkey’s Ambassador to Moldova Mehmet Selim Kartal said that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a remarkable personality. “Without him, we wouldn’t have had a republic, independence and freedom,” he stated. According to the diplomat, one of the most important reforms promoted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with the Latin one. The Ottoman Empire used the Arabic alphabet, but it turned out to be unsuitable for the Turkish language because it didn’t contain enough letters. “Owing to this reform, the people became more literate and this happened in a very short period of time,” he stated.
Attending the event, the president of the Association of Turkish and Moldovan Businessmen Abdurrahman Seziş said that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk brought democracy to Turkey. “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk paid increased attention to the human rights and a lot of leaders and countries followed his example,” stated the businessman.
According to the historians, the greatest accomplishment of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the creation of a new political society that took the first step towards building democracy. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk struggled to separate politics from the church and encouraged the formation of opposition parties. He also struggled for peace. “He inherited a poor, destroyed country and transformed it into a country with a functional economy. Peace was his main reform. He offered the people the opportunity to work and this led to the development of the state. He was the architect of the Turkish identity in the modern period,” stated Professor McCarthy Justine.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in Salonika in 1881. He died on November 10, 1938.
