Black painted metal bust of Ismet Inönü is located on Heybeliada island in Ismet Inönü park of Adalar neighbourhood of Istanbul. It is monument of formally dressed over-life size Ismet Inönü placed on high marble pedestal without any inscription or plaques. This bust was made by Mehmet Inci in 1945.
"Mustafa Ismet Inönü...
...was a Turkish Army General, Prime Minister and the second President of Turkey. In 1938, the Republican People's Party gave him the title of "Milli Sef" (National Chief).
(...)
After the death of Atatürk, Inönü was viewed as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him, and was elected the second President of the Republic of Turkey and enjoyed the official title of "Milli Sef", i.e. "National Chief".
World War II broke out in the first year of his presidency, and both the Allies and the Axis pressured Inönü to bring Turkey into the war on their side. The Germans sent Franz von Papen to Ankara while the British sent Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen and the French René Massigli. On 23 April 1939, Turkish Foreign Minister Sükrü Saracoglu told Knatchbull-Hugessen of his nation's fears of Italian claims of the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum and German control of the Balkans, and suggested an Anglo-Soviet-Turkish alliance as the best way of countering the Axis. In May 1939, during the visit of Maxime Weygand to Turkey, Inönü told the French Ambassador René Massigli that he believed that the best way of stopping Germany was an alliance of Turkey, the Soviet Union, France and Britain; that if such an alliance came into being, the Turks would allow Soviet ground and air forces onto their soil; and that he wanted a major programme of French military aid to modernize the Turkish armed forces. The signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939 led Turkey away from the Allies as the Turks always believed that it was essential to have the Soviet Union as an ally to counter Germany, and the signing of the German-Soviet pact undercut completely the assumptions behind Turkish security policy.
Winston Churchill secretly met with Inönü inside a train wagon at the Yenice Station near Adana on 30 January 1943. Inönü later met with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on 4–6 December 1943. Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill thought that Turkey's continuing neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East. But the early victories of the Axis up to the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate a possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies. Turkey had maintained a decently-sized Army and Air Force throughout the war, and Churchill wanted the Turks to open a new front in the Balkans. Roosevelt, on the other hand, still believed that a Turkish attack would be too risky, and an eventual Turkish failure would have disastrous effects for the Allies.
Inönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during decades of incessant war between 1908 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. The young Turkish Republic was still re-building, recovering from the losses due to earlier wars, and lacked any modern weapons and the infrastructure to enter a war to be fought along and possibly within its borders. Inönü also wanted assurances on financial and military aid for Turkey, as well as a guarantee that the United States and the United Kingdom would stand beside Turkey in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Turkish Straits after the war. The fear of Soviet invasion and Joseph Stalin's unconcealed desire to control the Turkish Straits eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle of neutrality in foreign relations and join NATO in 1952."
Source and more info: (
visit link)