HOW FAR IS THE FAR EAST TO THE NEAR EAST DYNAMICS OF JAPANESE-TURKISH RELATIONS BEFORE IT S OFFICIAL BEGINNING

Japan and Turkey, are often recognized as two countries with friendly relations that are characterized by warmth and selflessness. Today, both countries have close cooperation but the current socio-political conditions between the two countries as well as the romanticized narratives of history overshadowed the complicated reality of the initial years of Japanese-Turkish relations. While we are approaching to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey and the 100th anniversary of the Turkish-Japanese relations, this study aims to comprehensively examine the unofficial years of the bilateral relations between 1873 and 1924, shedding light on the character of the initial years of it and elucidating the fundamental conditions that shaped these relations. In pursuit of this objective, this research relies on sources such as the Ottoman Archives, the Archives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, newspaper articles, and minutes from the Lausanne Conference. It demonstrates that the early stages of Turkish-Japanese relations were marked by two non-European empires struggling against 19thcentury imperial powers, carefully evaluating each other's positions, evaluating the changing position and policies of each other within the international law and within the 19th-century global order by engaging in extensive political maneuvers and therefore preventing it to gain an official character. In this context, the study endeavors to present the early phases of Japanese-Turkish relations from an academic perspective, moving away from romanticized narratives.