The Turkish Grand National Assembly yesterday ratified the bill to deploy troops to Libya, with 325 members of parliament voting in favor. The motion was approved with votes of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), while the country’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Good Party (IP), and the conservative Felicity Party (SP) voted against it.

It appears that even though the SP had initially announced it would be voting in favor of the motion, it failed to convince two of its deputies in Parliament to agree, as it later reversed its decision. There is no doubt that those who voted against the motion chose to stand with Israel, France, Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Taking position against Turkey, they abandoned their country, partnering with those that are working to prevent Turkey from gaining power in the region. This attitude is a step taken in efforts to weaken Turkey from within; they resorted to running their tutelage mechanisms within.

Voting in favor of the motion yesterday, the Turkish Parliament authorized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to send troops to Libya. Turkey made a decision, similar to the Cyprus Peace Operation, which transcends fighting terrorism at the border and across borders; it made history.

More than a century later, we are present in Libya once again. We are on the same soil for the first time since the 1911-12 Turco-Italian War. Pay no attention to those who regard Libya as “foreign land”; in fact, we are in our own region. Pay no attention to those who ask, “Why is Libya our concern?”; we are Libya.

Pay no attention to those who bottle up your mind within the confines of Anatolia; we are a nation integrated with the region. We are the region. We are a part of the region. The map of the Mediterranean, North Africa and Anatolia are all one and the same.

A century is nothing in the memory of nations, countries and the region. We were in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Jerusalem a century ago. They will tell you this was centuries ago, yet that century is as close as the present day.

We are in the same situation that Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Enver Pasha fought against a century ago. We are there to put up the same fight against those that made it impossible for us to live in this region.

The same front exists today in Libya, in Syria, in every corner of our region, carrying on the same war in Ankara. They are striking us while we resist. They are trying to tie our hands while we strive to break free of our chains.

This struggle has been ongoing incessantly since we first set foot in Anatolia a millennium ago. It continued during The Crusades, as was the case during World War I. It is ongoing even today.

However, today we are witnessing a turn in history. A century ago the Empire was collapsed, but today Turkey is on a rise. A showdown is taking place everywhere, but this time we are gaining strength as they regress. History is boosting us upward, while it is pulling them down.

They have set up a great front in the Mediterranean. The U.S., France, Germany, the U.K., Israel, Italy and Greece are all there. Their Trojan horses, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are also there.

They have all joined forces around a common goal: to stop Turkey; to banish it from the Mediterranean; to build fronts right on our shores; to confine Turkey in Anatolia and, ultimately, hunt it down there; and to siege us at even a greater scale than the front we call the “terror corridor,” which spans the Iranian border and the Mediterranean.

Turkey destroyed the front that was established through the “terror corridor.” It collapsed the “Turkey front,” which they had been preparing for the last decade, amassing enough weapons to equip several armies.

Turkey is now intervening in the Mediterranean map and striving to destroy the front and break the siege there. It is working toward collapsing the “multinational siege” in the Mediterranean.

Turkey is fighting with all its might. This is the defense of Anatolia. Do the parties that voted against the Libya motion yesterday never study history or the region?

Do they not see what has been happening in this region for centuries? Do they not see what is happening in Iraq, in the north of Syria? Do they not see the masters of terror? Do they not comprehend the hostility France, the U.S. and Israel have begotten against Turkey?

Do these parties, these members of parliament have no care for the fights this country has been putting up on these lands for centuries? Did they even forget against whom we fought the War of Independence?

They have anchored in the wrong pages of history. They have abandoned Turkey. They have chosen to stand alongside the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Khalifa Haftar, France, Sisi, Israel, and the terror baron in the UAE.

The pro-tutelage have no political identity; they are neither leftist, rightist, nor Islamist. You are either pro-tutelage or you are on the “Turkey axis.” These are the only two options now, but they failed to see this, or this was the role assigned to them.

Turkey is going to continue to play big despite you. It is going to continue with its millennium-old struggle. It is going to continue to be present in the Mediterranean, in North Africa, and in all corners of the region.