Alexander Mercouris — ‘Syria, Iraq are Turkey’s responsibility,’ exclaims Erdogan, demands Mosul, parts of Asia, Balkans and Middle East

Then sultan speaks.

Referring to the National Covenant – a 1920 declaration by the last Ottoman parliament, which was used by the newly formed Turkish Republic as the basis of its initial negotiating position at the conference of Lausanne, which eventually established Turkey’s present borders – he claimed that according to “certain historians” it had included within Turkey’s borders:

“Cyprus, Aleppo (in Syria), Mosul, Arbil and Kirkuk (in Iraq), Batum (in Georgia), Kardzhali, Varna (in Bulgaria), and Thessaloniki and the Aegean islands (in Greece).”

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou wrote earlier on the claims made by Erdogan about Turkey’s right to certain Greek islands. He also used historic, linguistic and religious ties to claim for Turkey a gigantic zone of influence for itself

“Turkey is not only Turkey. Not only for 79 million citizens, but Turkey bears also responsibility towards our hundreds of millions of brothers in the geographical area to whom we are connected through our historical and cultural ties.

It is a duty, but also a right of Turkey to be interested in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia, and other sister areas (NB: this is a reference to Azerbaijan and former Soviet Central Asia – AM). The moment you give up this, it will be the time when we lose our independence and our future”.

Hey, why stop there? 

The Duran
‘Syria, Iraq are Turkey’s responsibility,’ exclaims Erdogan, demands Mosul, parts of Asia, Balkans and Middle East
Alexander Mercouris

Gordon M. Hahn — Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood Strategy, the ‘War’ Against Jihadism, and Russia’s Syria Intervention, Part 3: Obama’s America and Erdogan’s Turkey

Backgrounder on Erdogan's Turkey. Flirting with the devil.

Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood Strategy, the ‘War’ Against Jihadism, and Russia’s Syria Intervention, Part 3: Obama’s America and Erdogan’s Turkey
Gordon M. Hahn

L. Ali Khan — The Unviability of an Islamic Caliphate: Who Can be Caliph?

Islamic history with implications for today.

Counterpunch
The Unviability of an Islamic Caliphate: Who Can be Caliph?

L. Ali Khan, founder of Legal Scholar Academy and a professor of law at Washburn University, Kansas

Moon of Alabama — Turkey's Imperial Motive In Attacking Syria And Iraq

Turkey's attack on Syria and Iraq and its support for Islamists in those countries and elsewhere is often described as religiously motivated. But that is only a part of the story. The real-political side is an imperialist effort to expand Turkey into the space of the former Ottoman empire.…

Moon of Alabama
Turkey's Imperial Motive In Attacking Syria And Iraq

Serkan Aydin — De-mystifying Turkey’s Multi-polarity in Foreign Policy

Fort Russ
De-mystifying Turkey’s Multi-polarity in Foreign Policy
Serkan Aydin

Carl Bildt — Preserving the Ottoman Mosaic

The roots of the Middle East’s many conflicts lie in the unraveling of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century and the failure since then to forge a stable regional order. As the international community works toward securing a durable peace in the region, its leaders would be wise to remember the lessons of history.

Project Syndicate
Preserving the Ottoman Mosaic
Carl Bildt | Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance, member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe, Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994), and Foreign Minister (2006-2014).

Can Erimtan — All's well that ends well: Rise to the top of the new Turkey’s PM

Winding down of secular Turkey? And the rise of neo-Ottomanism?

From his safe spot away from the madding crowd and irritating spotlights, the wily Davutoglu secured Turkish support for the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; encouraged the Tahrir Square uprising and the subsequent rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; opposed the Shiite-led government in Baghdad by granting asylum to the disgraced Sunni Tariq al-Hashimi; and finally, cooperated with Barack Obama and others to depose Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in the process apparently freely supporting such extreme organizations as the Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS (now known as the Islamic State led by Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi). Pseudo-Ottoman Turkey has indeed travelled far in the past five years.

As a result, the peaceful pseudo-Ottoman course advocated by the dynamic duo Erdogan- Davutoglu, a course leading to maximized profits and heightened prestige, has taken a sharp turn over the past months.

Rather than fostering commercial relations and friendly ties inside the wider Islamic world, the erstwhile advisor-turned-FM-turned-PM Davutoglu seems to have guided the Turkish state's ship into the decidedly unfriendly waters of the Sunni-Shia rivalry that I have elsewhere referred to as the intra-Islamic Cold War.

Dr. Behlul Ozkan's, Assistant Professor in IR at Istanbul's Marmara University and a former student of Davutoglu's, believes that Prime Minister Davutoglu would aim to establish an Islamic Union. Ozkan sees the politician as a "Pan-Islamist, as he is not [acting in a] defensive [manner], but [rather] expansionistically; not passive but rather [pro-] active". He goes as far as saying that Davutoglu regards Turkey as the centre of the Middle East, a Muslim realm that would also include such places like Albania and Bosnia (Muslim areas of the Ottoman Balkans), and Davutoglu's "Pan-Islamist world is an order dominated by the Sunni creed".

Davutoglu's foreign policy adventures in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq all but underline his Ottomanist strand, supporting a Sunni insurgence in the wider Ottoman hinterland, stretching from Tripoli to Baghdad and from Cairo to Damascus.…

RT
All's well that ends well: Rise to the top of the new Turkey’s PM
Can Erimtan

Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent scholar residing in İstanbul, with a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans and the Greater Middle East. He attended the VUB in Brussels and did his graduate work at the universities of Essex and Oxford. In Oxford, Erimtan was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and he obtained his doctorate in Modern History in 2002. His publications include the book “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles. In the period 2010-11, he wrote op-eds for Today’s Zaman and in the further course of 2011 he also published a number of pieces in Hürriyet Daily News. In 2013, he was the Turkey Editor of the İstanbul Gazette.