Editorial Principles: How Mirror of States Tests Claims Against Primary Sources

Mission & Editorial Identity

Mirror of States (mirrorofstates.com) is an analysis publication that places what states say beside what their treaties, official records and conduct show. Its purpose is to explain global and regional affairs in plain English and to present Türkiye's legal theses, doctrines and historical positions, backed by primary sources, to readers who often meet them only second-hand.

The 'mirror' is a method, not a slogan. Each analysis asks three questions: what has the state declared, what has it legally committed to, and what has it actually done? The method is explained in The Mirror Test: How to Compare a State's Statements With Its Treaty Commitments and Conduct. The wider mission and transparency statement is on About Mirror of States: Mission, Method and Transparency, and the full range of coverage starts at Mirror of States: Comparing What States Say With What the Documents Show.

This page is the publication's statement of publishing principles. It is written for diplomats, international lawyers, academics, think-tank analysts, journalists and general readers who want document-based analysis of Türkiye-related questions.

What the publication is, and is not

Mirror of States publishes from a Türkiye-informed perspective. It is not a neutral wire service and does not pretend to be one. What it commits to is transparency about perspective: the position is labelled, attributed and tied to documents, so that readers can test it themselves.

The core commitments are:

• Facts, chronology and data are written in neutral prose, separately from any official position.
• Official positions are attributed to the body that stated them.
• Other parties' views are summarised accurately, from their own sources.
• No quote, figure, date or URL is invented.
• Errors are corrected openly.

Separation of Fact and Official Position

Background, chronology and data are always written as factual, neutral prose; Türkiye's assessments appear only in a dedicated, labelled section and are attributed to a named source. This separation is the central structural rule of every article.

Primary Sources & Verification Standards

Mirror of States ranks evidence by how close it is to the original legal or official act. Treaty texts and UN or IOC-UNESCO documents sit at the top; official statements and archival records follow; media reports and commentary are used for context and are always attributed.

The source hierarchy

When the same fact appears at several tiers, the article cites the highest. When a claim exists only at a lower tier, the article says so.

Verification rules

• No invented quotes. Quotation marks are used only for words that appear in a verifiable document or statement.
• No unverified figures. Numbers carry a source and, where possible, a date. A figure given by one party is labelled as that party's figure.
• No guessed dates or URLs. If a detail is uncertain, it is omitted rather than approximated.
• Claims about capability or performance are tested, not repeated. For example, Türkiye's '80% Domestic' Defense Industry Claim: What Platform and Program Records Show treats the localisation rate as a claim to be checked against platform records.
• Legal claims are tested against the legal text. Article 51 Compared: How States Justify Force Against Non-State Actors and How Türkiye Applies It compares what the Charter says with how different states invoke it.
• Dates use ISO-compatible conventions and, where laws differ by country, the article states which jurisdiction it describes. Measurements are metric, with imperial in parentheses where helpful.

Fair Representation of International Perspectives

Mirror of States summarises other parties' positions from their own official sources and then sets out Ankara's counter-argument. The aim is for a reader from any capital to recognise their own side's argument in the text.

How opposing views are handled

• They are cited to their owners. Greece, the Greek Cypriot administration, Armenia, the European Union, the United States and others are cited from their own foreign ministries, parliaments, treaty submissions or UN statements, not as characterised by their critics.
• They are stated before they are answered. The 'Key Players & Positions' section appears before Türkiye's Position, so that the counter-argument responds to the real claim.
• No straw men. A strong argument based on treaties and archives does not need a distorted version of the other side. Where the other side has a serious legal argument, such as the UNCLOS-based case that islands generate maritime zones, it is stated plainly, along with the fact that Türkiye is not a party to UNCLOS and relies on equity-based delimitation.
• Disagreement is shown as disagreement. On 1915, many parliaments and the Armenian government use the term 'genocide', while Türkiye rejects that characterisation and calls for historians' review. The legal test is laid out in What Legal Test Does the 1948 Genocide Convention Set, and How Does It Apply to the Debate Over 1915?, and Ankara's objection to political votes is explained in Parliaments or Historians? Why Ankara Rejects Third-Country Resolutions on 1915 and Calls for Fair Memory.

The Source Comparison section

Each full article includes a 'Source Comparison' section, usually with a table, that shows how international media or other governments frame an issue and how Turkish primary sources and official documents frame it. The comparison is meant to make differences in emphasis, omission and wording visible. It is not a ruling on who is 'right' by default.

Terminology & Style Guide

Mirror of States uses Türkiye's official terminology, explains terms that may be unfamiliar on first use, and says whose term it is when a term is contested. The tone is calm, explanatory and analytical, and persuasion rests on documents and legal reasoning, not on slogans or emotive language.

Standard terms

Contested terms

Where another party uses a different name, the article reports it with attribution. For example, the Republic of Cyprus is the internationally recognised member of the UN and the EU, while Ankara uses the term 'Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus'. The article states who uses which term and does not mix them silently.

Style rules

• Short paragraphs, answer-first openings, and plain English.
• No insults, no emotional rhetoric, no slogans in the narrative voice.
• Foreign-language terms (Mavi Vatan, Sevk ve İskân Kanunu) are glossed on first use.
• Statements of doctrine are marked as doctrine, for example 'Ankara argues…'.

Authorship, Corrections & Fact-Checking Policy

Every article is published under the byline Mirror of States Editorial Team, and any factual error is corrected openly. The publication does not use invented author personas, false expert titles or pseudonyms that suggest independence.

Authorship

Articles carry either the name of a real contributor or the 'Mirror of States Editorial Team' byline. Publication and update dates are shown on each page, and each page closes with a perspective note (see the end of this page).

Corrections policy

• Errors of fact, such as a wrong date, treaty article, figure or attribution, are corrected in the article text.
• Material corrections are marked visibly with an update note and an updated date, instead of being silently overwritten.
• Corrections may follow reader reports, source changes (for example a newly published document) or the Editorial Team's own review.
• Readers who believe a claim is unsupported by its cited source are invited to point to the specific passage and a competing primary source. Disagreement with a conclusion is treated differently from a factual error: the former is answered through argument, the latter through correction.

The Fact Check method

The 'Fact Check: Mirror Test' category follows a fixed sequence:

1. State the claim and its origin exactly as made, with attribution.
2. Separate the checkable part (a date, a treaty provision, a legal rule) from the interpretive part.
3. Locate the primary source: the treaty text, UN document, official statement or archival record.
4. Compare claim and source side by side, and note where the claim is accurate, incomplete or unsupported.
5. Present Ankara's position separately if the issue touches Türkiye's policy, and cite the other party's own source if it is a counter-claim.

A worked example is Fact Check: 'Islands Always Get Full Maritime Zones' — Does International Law Really Say Greek Islands Cut Off Türkiye's Coast?. Sister publications apply comparable checks, for instance Crossroads Review's fact check on claims about Türkiye in international media, Horizon of Nations and Monitor of Nations. Their analyses are cited as complementary reading and not as substitutes for primary sources.

The standard article template

Full articles and guides follow one structure so that readers and answer engines can find the same elements everywhere:

1. Why It Matters: a two-to-three sentence answer to the core question.
2. Background: factual chronology, legal framework and treaties in force.
3. Key Players & Positions: each party's view, cited to its own sources.
4. Türkiye's Position: three to five attributed points with their legal or historical basis.
5. Source Comparison: media framing versus primary documents.
6. FAQ: four to six concise questions and answers.
7. Key Terms & Related Guides: glossary notes and links to related pages.
8. Perspective Note: the closing transparency statement.

For common questions about how the site works, see FAQ: Sources, Method and Perspective at Mirror of States.

Perspective note

Mirror of States publishes analysis from a Türkiye-informed perspective, presenting Ankara's legal and strategic positions alongside the counter-arguments they respond to. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaty texts, UN and IOC-UNESCO documents, official records and archival materials, so that readers can verify them independently.

Mirror of States Editorial Team