Abstract:

While Turkey was following a completely independent policy in the liberation and establishment under the leadership of Atatürk; Albania -which lacked a leader like Atatürk in the same period- passed from the Republic to the Kingdom. Albania, which could not be included in the Balkan Pact due to the influence of Italy -which it became closer as Albania moved away from Turkey- when faced with the invasion of Italy, the King had to leave its crown, throne and country with his two-day-old son and his postpartum wife. Turkey and the Turkish press, which has been united with the Albanians for five centuries and has many Albanian-origin citizens in its country, and also fought for independence a quarter of a century ago, showed great sensitivity towards the occupation of Albania. The attitude of Italy, which owns the Dodecanese Islands and settled in the Balkans with the occupation of Albania, was perceived as a threat to Turkey and the Balkan Pact. In this period, when World War II was on the horizon, Turkey left the policy of neutrality and entered the peace front with England and France against the Italian threat and German expansion. The reflection of Italy's occupation of Albania on the Turkish press and foreign policy, examining for the first time in an academic study on the basis of the Turkish press (as no documents could be found in the Turkish Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Republic Archive of the State Archives) constitutes the originality of this article. The days of King Zog in Turkey after the occupation were not included in this study, since the two-month period (3 May-1 July 1939) of King Zog of Albania since his asylum in Turkey is a separate wide scientific study by us.

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