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However, the refusal of the European Union to grant membership to Turkey has played an educative role. It's made us realize that the world does not consist of Western Europe alone, that a country can become strong politically and economically by concentrating, by diversifying its international relations, all the world over, and we have been doing that with increasing success.

— Bülent Ecevit

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "However, the refusal of the European Union to grant membership to Turkey has played an educative role. It's made us realize that the world does not consist of Western Europe alone, that a country can become strong politically and economically by concentrating, by diversifying its international relations, all the world over, and we have been doing that with increasing success." in the context of ""An Address by the Turkish Prime Minister (full transcript)" in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1999)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Bülent Ecevit" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bülent Ecevit

About Bülent Ecevit

Mustafa Bülent Ecevit (28 May 1925 – 5 November 2006) was a Turkish politician, statesman, poet, writer, scholar, and journalist, who served as the Prime Minister of Turkey four times between 1974 and 2002. He served as prime minister in 1974, 1977, 1978–79, and 1999–2002. Ecevit was the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) between 1972 and 1980, and in 1989 he became the leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP). He is credited with introducing social democratic politics to Turkey by synthesizing Kemalism with social democracy, thus making social democracy a core tenet in modern Kemalist ideology.