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Huhuu!

Recently Turkey and Finland signed a peace treaty after over 6 months of war actuated by a desire to put an end to the hostilities ... ...and to establish lasting peaceful relation (as stated in the treaty).

In the previous issue I went through some of the reasons which lead to the war and summarized the key events during the war (see here, in Finnish). According to the narrative told by the Turkish government the main motivation for the war were the events during 2017 summer when Finland with allies invaded, wiped and implemented tax and trade embargo laws for Turkey. As a part of the pece treaty the Finnish government acknowledged these improper actions against Turkey.

Is that it? Are we ready to move on to established peaceful relations and perhaps even friendship?

The survey

From the Finnish perspective the treaty in general was well received and most saw that it was necessary even if they don't like it. Of course, there are critics also. How about on the other side?

I decided to conduct a survey to find out how Turkish people feel about Finland - Turkey relations. I decided to send the questions with pm to all congress members (39). In total I received 14 responses, 12 of which contained answers for the questions (one player responded that he/she does not have time to answer the questions and another said Finland is not important for him/her). The response rate was in total 12/39 (31😵

The questions were:

1. Do you think 6 months wipe and trade embargo of Finland was justified because of 2017 trade embargo on Turkey?

2. Do you feel that Turkey and Finland are now even and we can establish peaceful relations in the future?

3. What would you like to see done to establish better relations?

4. Please write any additional comments you have for this matter.

(In addition the message contained some background info on the war)

Question 1.

10/12 answered yes and 2/12 said clearly that war was not justified. However, when looking more closely to the answers, 5/12 said that wipe was too long or Turkey's actions on Finland too harsh (even if justified). On the other hand they blame partly the Finnish government which was stubborn not to apologize earlier. Only 4/12 firmly believed that actions were justified without question.

Question 2.

The answers were clear for this one. All the respondents felt that peaceful relation can no start to be established. Most stated that from their viewpoint Finland and Turkey are even and past events have been redeemed. Some also pointed out that the relation of the two countries depend on global politics and possible common interest in the future. One of the respondents felt, however, that in level of people, were are not ready for peace even if political level is at peace.

Question 3.

For this question there were many concrete suggestions. First of all we should stop dishonor each other and each countries value (e.g. not shout insults about other country in comments). Also many said that more active diplomatic exchange, joint Discord channel and in general better communication between the countries would appear helpful to maintain peaceful relations. Also starting a training war was suggested.

Question 4.

For additional comments the respondents wanted to remind that this is a game and people should have fun playing.

Summary

For me this survey gives a positive impression on FIN-TUR relation. There seems to be a good foundations to begin building peaceful relation and perhaps even more even if a lot needs to be done. Concrete suggestions (Q3) can be implemented by the Finnish government if better relations are desired.

Limitations of this survey is small response rate which may bias the answers. Likely only the most active players responded and perhaps the passive ones may have different opinions. It is also possible the language barrier prevented some from answering.

-Haamu