Was watching Rick Stein last night whilst he ate his way around Turkey, and one part caught my attention. He visited the railway carriage in which Churchill and Turkish President Inönü met in 1943 to discuss Turkey's possible entry into the war.
Did a bit of digging:
Quote:
After the death of Atatürk, Inönü was seen as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him, and was elected as the second President of the Republic of Turkey.
World War II broke out in the first year of his presidency, and both the Allies and the Axis started to put pressure on Inönü to bring Turkey into the war on their side. The Germans sent Franz von Papen to Ankara, while Winston Churchill secretly met with Inönü inside a train wagon near Adana on January 30, 1943.
Inönü later met with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on December 4-6, 1943. Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill thought that Turkey's continuing neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East. But the early victories of the Axis up to the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate a possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies.
Turkey had maintained a decently-sized Army and Air Force throughout the war, and Churchill wanted the Turks to open a new front in the Balkans. Roosevelt, on the other hand, still believed that a Turkish attack would be too risky, and an eventual Turkish failure would have disastrous effects for the Allies. Inönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during 11 years of incessant war between 1911 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could.
Inönü also wanted assurances on financial and military aid for Turkey, as well as a guarantee that the United States and the United Kingdom would stand beside Turkey in case of a Soviet invasion of the Turkish Straits after the war. The fear of a Soviet invasion and Stalin's unconcealed desire to control the Turkish Straits eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle of neutrality in foreign relations and join NATO in 1952.
Perhaps the biggest political achievement of Inönü was keeping his country out of World War II until February 1945, when Turkey entered the war on the side of the Allies against Germany and Japan.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0s...n%C3%B6n%C3%BC 