Editorial

Dear Journal of Gazi Academic View Readers,

We are happy to welcome you with the thirty-first issue of our journal. Despite
the extraordinary increase in the prices of the service sector and paper under
the difficult economic conditions in our country, we are trying to maintain
our traditional understandig and keep delivering our issues in print.

In this issue, there are eighteen valuable articles by twenty-three authors.
Each of them has been scrupulously reviewed by our precious referees
through blind refereeing and has been included in this issue of the journal
after the final decision of our editorial board. There are fifteen Turkish
and three English articles. Nine of the articles are on history, seven on
International Relations, and one on Political Science and Archeology.

In the first article of this issue, Emre OZAN seeks answers to the questions of
how Turkey’s national security environment looked in the early years of the
Turkish Republic and what the main threat perceptions were. In our second
article, Serhat Aras TUNA discussed the attempts to implement the Vilayat-ı
Sitte reform in Van, which included giving new rights to Armenians living in
Erzurum, Diyarbekir, Bitlis, Van, Sivas and Mamuretulaziz provinces in the
late 19th century, in political, social, economic, legal and many other fields.
In the third article, Rahman ŞAHİN discusses in line with the information
obtained from the Ottoman Archives Niche and Bond Pen Notebooks, Ruus
Kalemi Notebooks, Kamil Kepeci Notebooks and Mühimme Notebooks,
the kinship ties of Mihaloğlu raider begs and their services as Sanjak Beg
in the Vılçıtrın Sanjak in the central Balkans. In the fourth article, İsmail
KÖSE examined Pyadyy Eskadra, the Mediterranean naval power of the
Soviet Union, in the context of the regime of the Turkish Straits and the
Mediterranean policy of the USA in the Cold War context. In the fifth article,
Pakize ÇOBAN KARABULUT researched the abandoned properties problem
between Syria and Turkey in the years between 1921-1950 and the role of
France in this process. In the sixth article, Abdurrahim Fahimi AYDIN
discuss his research on the disasters, social and economic crises and aid
activities in Malatya in the last quarter of the 19th century. In the seventh
article, Hatice DURGUN discussed the activities of the Governor of Konya,
Mehmed Ferid Pasha of Avlonya, in Antalya sanjak of the Ottoman Empire,
in line with the documents obtained from the Ottoman Archive. In the eighth
article, Nursel GÜLCÜ investigated the studies carried out within the scope
of the “exemplary village” program which is implemented in Solak Village
by the Antalya Peoples Houses during the Atatürk period and also discusses
the effects of these studies on the present day. In the ninth article, Rıza
ÖZBÖLÜK touched upon the issue of obtaining exemption from military
service by pretending that he has no one to take care of his family when he is
conscripted, which is one of the methods frequently used by men who do not
want to join the military with the coming of compulsory military service in
the Ottoman Empire. In the tenth article, Seda TAN deals with Şehremaneti
Veterinary Inspector Mehmed Haydar, who had a very important place in the
establishment of the modern civil veterinary medicine culture in the Ottoman
Empire. In the eleventh article, Mustafa Tayfur ÜSTÜN analyzes the political
construction and representation of the 1915 Armenian events through the
two films “Word” and “Ottoman Officer” that highlight the Armenian and
Turkish theses on the issue. In the twelfth article, Fulya ÖZKAN analyzes
Turkish Foreign Policy through the thesis of the end of ideology that came to
the fore in the 1960s. In the thirteenth article, Ahmet SAPMAZ has analyzed
the Caucasus, which constitutes one of the most dynamic areas of the Russian
Federation’s domestic, foreign and security policy in the post-Cold War
period, and almost serves as a testing ground for analyzing Moscow’s policy
reactions. In the fourteenth article, Erdem ATEŞ and Dilek SEYMEN sought
answers to his question of should Turkey be included in the One Belt One
Road initiative? In the fifteenth article, Tamer KAŞIKCI argues that, similar
to the other examples in Asia, Shanghai Cooperation Organization has not
reached a strong institutionalization level due to the problems experienced
in issues such as leadership, common interest and common identity. In the
sixteenth article, Yavuz GÜNAŞDI, Ahmet Cüneydi HAS and Burak BINGÖL
shared with us their research on human-shaped stone statues and balbals
in Ormanlı village of Şenkaya district of Erzurum belonging to the Turkish
cultures early periods. In the seventeenth article, Ramazan İZOL and Murat
CİNGÖZ discussed the ongoing Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry over Yemen. In the
eighteenth and last article Durmuş Ali KOLTUK and Filiz KAVAL discuss
a possible Customs Union modernization of Turkey based on the UK-EU
Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

Dear Journal of Gazi Academic View readers, we hope that you will read the
articles in our thirty-first issue with great interest. We would like to thank the
authors, the reviewers, the editorial board and the for their contribution to
this issue. We hope to meet you in our next issue.

Sincerely
Editor