​​​​​​​​​​​​​​"Neo-Ottomanism"... How AKP takes advantage of region's conditions to implement it?

 With the continuation of Turkish moves in the region, there is talk of "Neo-Ottomanism" again, as this term is used to describe Turkey's foreign political relations led by the Justice and Development Party.

 Ozal..the godfather of the neo-Ottomans

 The Turkish politician, Turgut Ozal, who ruled Turkey after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is the godfather of the "Neo-Ottomanism" project, which aims to gather the Turkic-speaking peoples from the Wall of China to the Adriatic Sea in one nation, in which Turkey will be the leader, meaning that it includes Central Asia, the Balkans and  Caucasus and the Middle East.

 The beginning of the nineties was an opportunity to announce the "neo-Ottoman" project after the international scene witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the independence of the Islamic republics of Central Asia, the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation and the emergence of libertarianism in the Balkans, which prompted practical steps towards realizing this project.

 The "Justice and Development" Party and the "Neo-Ottoman"...a merging of Islam and the Ottoman heritage

 The arrival of the Justice and Development Party, headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to power in Turkey in 2002 was not an ordinary and routine event due to the developments that followed in Turkey and the region in general.

 The party's approach carried severe ethnic polarization and denied other identities, especially the Kurdish ones, and sought to liquidate them politically and militarily, in addition to an unprecedented deep sectarian tension.

 The leaders of this party worked from the beginning to invoke history and play on the feelings of peoples, especially Arabs and Muslims.

 In building its national identity, the Justice and Development Party relied on the two pillars of Islam and the Ottoman heritage. The common element that unites the peoples living in “Anatolia” is not Turkish nationalism, but Ottoman history, and the main determinant of this history is Sunni Islam, according to the party’s subsequent literature for a period that enables it to  power in the country.

 Experts believe that Erdogan's merger in this way between political Islam and neo-Ottomanism was deliberate, and its goal is to establish a new Turkey by 2023, i.e. the centenary of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.  Neo-Ottoman.

 The "Justice and Development" party relied on several methods to promote this policy, most notably the Turkish drama that invaded the Middle East markets, in addition to converting the Aya Sofi Church into a mosque and other revival of Ottoman rituals.

 The expert in international relations, Dr. Hamid Fares, spoke about this, saying: “The historical context must be dropped on reality. History is not dead, but is still alive, and many of the practices carried out by the neo-Ottomans and the Turkish state under the Justice and Development Party government a year ago  2002 is an attempt to reproduce this history, and to claim the existence of historical and religious rights for the Turks in the Arab region.

He explained, "There is an effort by Erdogan to revive the Neo-Ottomanism with the aim of seizing lands and plundering wealth and adding them to Turkish wealth after the trade routes turned away from its lands, as well as its bad economic situation as a result of Erdogan's wrong policies internally or externally."

 He added, "Therefore, the neo-Ottoman project revolves around the thought of Turkish President Erdogan and his ruling party, and the idea has increased greatly after the terrorist Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, but with their fall Erdogan's colonial ambitions shifted to other Arab countries such as the occupation of the northeast in Syria and military intervention in  Libya and Iraq.

 The Brotherhood..a tool of Turkish politics

 Regarding the tools used by the neo-Ottoman, Fares said: "Neo-Ottomanism is a Turkish political ideology that describes its foreign political relations led by the Justice and Development Party and aims to increase Turkish involvement in the Arab region and the Middle East that was previously under the Ottoman Empire to increase Turkish influence and seize control of the Ottoman Empire."  The lands of the Arab region and looting their resources, as happens in many Arab countries, foremost of which are Syria, Iraq and Libya. Thus, Erdogan's idea of ​​reviving the Ottoman Empire jumped to his mind the moment the Brotherhood came to rule Egypt."

 He added, "Why the Brotherhood specifically? Because Erdogan and his party are old members of the international organization of the Brotherhood, and they have a wide network of common strategic interests and there is high-level coordination among them. He organized conferences for Brotherhood leaders from abroad, most notably the conference held in 2006 in Istanbul, which was attended by a group of  a large Brotherhood leader, led by Yousef al-Qaradawi.

 "Neo-Ottomanism" from the mouths of the leaders of "Justice and Development"

In 2003, after he came to power, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in an interview with a Turkish newspaper that "strangling Turkey inside Anatolia and locking it up there is out of the question; Turkey's full borders are not the official borders, Turkey's influence and interests go beyond its borders."

 And when Gul was asked: Is this neo-Ottomanism?  He said, " the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia are areas that concern us closely, and Turkey cannot be locked up in Anatolia."

 In turn, former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on November 24, 2009: "We have a legacy from the Ottoman era. They say neo-Ottomanism, yes we are neo-Ottomans, we must take care of the countries of our region as well as the countries of North Africa."

 Through these statements, AKP officials were passing historical messages such as the Milli Charter.

 On the issue of granting Turkish citizenship to Syrian refugees, the Turkish Minister of Interior, Suleyman Soylu, said in January 2019 that "they came from the lands of the Melli Charter borders," considering that this is a reason that entitles them to become Turks.

 Turkish state officials did not leave a single opportunity to recall the history of their ancestors in Syria, and on August 8, 2011, Erdogan, who was prime minister, said: “Syria is not an external issue, but rather an internal Turkish affair.”

 On July 15, 2012, Erdogan said: "They ask us about the reasons for our preoccupation with Syria. The answer is very simple, because we are a country that was founded on the rest of the Ottoman Empire. We are the descendants of the Seljuks, the Ottomans and the grandchildren of our ancestors who struggled."

 On January 11, 2018, Erdogan said: "Northern Syria was within the limits of the Melli Charter...".

 On September 16, 2018, a day before the Sochi Agreement, Erdogan said: "We do not recognize the Syrian regime and state. If some forces say that they are in Syria at the invitation of the regime, we are there at the invitation of the Syrian people.  The people are rising the Turkish flags.”

 Syria..a target for the neo-Ottomans

 In Syria, the Turkish occupation took advantage of the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in the spring of 2011, as it worked to support extremist groups at the expense of the national opposition, to later turn into mercenaries for Turkey, raising its flags and glorifying its symbols as if they were Turks.

 The Turkish occupation made the date for its attacks on Jarablus, Al-Bab and Azaz on August 24, 2016, the date of the Marj Dabiq sign between Sultan Selim I and Qansu al-Ghouri, the leader of the Mamluks, during which the Ottomans entered the Arab East, North Africa and Egypt.  After these attacks, about a month ago, a new term began to appear outside the neo-Ottoman region, the Milli Charter.

 Turkish state officials promoted terms and names that aimed to impose its presence in the region, such as the "safe zone" and the Euphrates Shield, among others.

The Turkish occupation worked to establish its presence in Idlib and Aleppo and tried to expand in northern Syria in general, but on its way it encountered the Syrian Democratic Forces, which stand against the division of Syria and the flaying of new parts of it, as happened in the Iskenderun Brigade, but with an agreement with Russia and through the Astana Agreement, Turkey occupied  Afrin, Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî.

 Over the past years, the Turkish occupation and its Syrian mercenaries have implemented a number of measures aimed at changing the identity of the occupied Syrian regions, such as Jarabulus, Al-Bab, Azaz, Afrin, Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî.

 Among these measures, the so-called Interim Government and its affiliated councils announced earlier that they were preparing to issue personal cards, in a dangerous step that threatens the Syrian national identity.

 This comes after it changed the demographics of these areas through the deportation of its original inhabitants and the settlement of thousands of mercenaries and their families, especially the Turkmen, in addition to raising the Turkish flags, and imposing the circulation of the Turkish currency instead of the Syrian one.

 Among these steps to strike the foundations and identity of the Syrian state, the head of the Turkish occupation state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued a presidential decree to open an institute and a college affiliated to a Turkish university in the occupied Syrian territories.

 Returning Syrian refugees..Another way to revive the Ottoman Empire

 Recently, Turkish President Erdogan announced a plan to resettle one million Syrian refugees in the areas he occupies from Syria, by building settlement housing units with Qatari and Kuwaiti funds.

 The Turkish occupation state pursues a multi-pronged policy through the Syrian refugees;  It used them at one time as a threat card against Europe, as well as exploiting them to employ them as cheap labor internally, not to mention using them as tools to bring about demographic change in other regions.

 On the plan of this policy towards Syria, Fares said: "In Syria, Erdogan offered Assad the participation of the Brotherhood in his government in exchange for Erdogan using his influence against Assad's opponents and ending the revolution in Syria. When this plan failed, Erdogan turned to the occupation of north and east Syria and sought to change the demographics of the region as  it happened with Iskenderun in 1939, and after that it became Turkish territory, contrary to the truth.”

 When linking Erdogan and his officials’ statements during the first stage of Syrian refugees entering Turkey with their statements now, it becomes clear that the goal is to cut off the occupied Syrian lands, as they said that these “came from the lands of the borders of the Milli Charter”, considering that this is a reason that entitles them to have the right to  They become Turks and obtain Turkish citizenship, and now they are preparing to return them to the areas of other residents who were displaced. This indicates a future scheme through which Turkey may organize a formal referendum to include these areas, as happened in the Iskenderun district.

Iraq and Southern Kurdistan under the eyes of the neo-Ottomans

 The Turkish occupation movements were not limited to Syria only, but also in Iraq and southern Kurdistan.  In October 2016, after the Iraqi government refused Turkey’s participation in the operation to liberate the city of Mosul in northern Iraq from ISIS, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to the Iraqi decision by saying, “They should read the Milli Charter to understand the meaning of Mosul for us...Mosul was  for us".

 Erdogan also said, "As we live through the events in Syria and Iraq, the new generation must know something very well. It is amazing what the Milli Pact is, we must know this well. If we study the Milli Pact and if we understand the Milli Pact, we understand well our responsibility in Syria and Iraq,  And if we say we have a responsibility in Mosul, then for that we have to be at the table and in the field, and for this there is a reason.Unfortunately we could not protect our religious pact on our western or southern borders, they wanted to lock us inside a shell, and this concept we reject, they want  Since 1923 they have imprisoned us in this concept in order to make us forget our Seljuk and Ottoman past.”

 On another occasion, he said: "We were not able to protect our Melli Charter. If we look closely at developments in Syria and Iraq, there is something I want to say. We must once again be the owners of the Melli Charter."

 The Turkish occupation has expanded its presence in Başûr Kurdistan by establishing several military bases with the participation of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and it is launching current attacks on the region.

 Libya, Azerbaijan and other regions of the world... greed and flight from within

 Not only in Syria and Iraq, but the Turkish state has worked to expand its influence to the eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Azerbaijan and others.

 Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said on December 25, 2019: "He who knows Turkey's modern history well understands clearly and accurately that Turkey's security begins behind the borders of the Milli Charter. We must draw wider steps for our security belt, so we  We care about Libya."

 And again Ibrahim Kalin said: "In the era of globalization, Turkish national security begins beyond the borders of the Milli Charter. Libya may seem far away, and to say that any matter in Libya reflects a narrow view of others."

 In this context, the researcher in international relations, Hamid Fares, stressed that “in light of a stifling economic crisis that has put Turkey on the brink of bankruptcy, ravaged foreign exchange reserves and made the Turkish lira plunge strongly against the dollar, the Turkish president did not find a solution to his crises that he created with his own hands except by robbing the wealth of his neighbors in light of  His colonial idea of ​​dominating Arab wealth in line with his perverted idea of ​​reviving the neo-Ottomanism amid open ambitions and theft of oil wealth in Iraq and Syria at low prices and a fierce struggle over oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean region.

 He added, "Turkey was not satisfied with that, but extended its arms to Libya in order to pounce on the wealth of sisterly Libya. The goal is to ensure the monopoly of Libyan oil and gas, achieve the largest economic and material gains from its revenues, and Turkey's exit from the economic stagnation state due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the outbreak of the Corona epidemic and Turkey's foreign policies."  The mistake that turned it from a country with zero problems to a country around which all the problems in the world revolve."

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 ANHA