Qassas: Erdogan seeks to implement "neo-Ottomanism"

 The Syrian opposition figure, Firas Qassas, confirmed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to implement the "neo-Ottomanism" project by doing anything, without regard to the United Nations charters or the international legitimacy for human rights, and pointed out that harming the experience of the Autonomous Administration and the occupation of its areas has become the directive.  The most important for Turkish politics.

 Turkish moves continue in the Middle East in general, and Syria and Iraq in particular, which led to the resurgence of talk about "neo-Ottomanism" as this term is used to describe Turkey's foreign political relations led by the Justice and Development Party.

 In addition to the attacks of the Turkish occupation on northern and eastern Syria and its threats to launch a new aggression on the region, the Turkish occupation continues its daily attacks on southern Kurdistan and Iraqi regions and its threats to Şengal in agreement with the Baghdad and Hewler governments.

 The neo-Ottoman project represents a serious threat to the Middle East region and its wealth. The project aims to plunder the peoples' goods and occupy neighboring countries, as Turkey seeks to extend its influence and restore its old glories.

 To talk about this issue, our agency conducted a special dialogue with the Syrian opposition leader and the head of the Modernity and Democracy Party for Syria, Firas Qassas.

 The text of the conversation was as follows:

 * What is the reality of the neo-Ottoman project?

 The neo-Ottoman project is the body and core of the strategic policy in which the Justice and Development government operates, a project aimed at restoring the imperial status to which the current state of Turkey belonged before the end of the First World War.

 The project, in this sense, is expansionist and does not recognize the geopolitical realities that followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and those in charge of it are doing everything they can to undermine or circumvent these facts and create alternative conditions that allow Turkey to exercise hegemony, annexation, or control over the countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire or revolve in its orbit.

 It is a project that does not recognize, in its deep content, the geographical realities around which the structure of the international system revolves, nor the modern national state, which is the most important building block in its mechanisms and composition.

 * Where does it derive from?

 Neo-Ottomanism derives its conception from nostalgia (a term used to describe nostalgia) and these two political supports are mutually supportive and form a solid nucleus of the structure and awareness of a political class that is not satisfied with the reality of the current Turkish state and does not believe in the values ​​of secularism and modern democracy.

 The Justice and Development Party and Erdogan, who have dominated Turkish political life for nearly two decades, are the main producers of this vision in Turkish politics, and it seems that they are ready to do anything in order to achieve it in reality, anything without regard to the United Nations charters or the international legitimacy of human rights or even the interests of  their people and their country are to the extent that they are eager to provide the requirements for the success of their endeavors and to import a new Ottoman into the life of the region and the world at any cost.

 * What does neo-Ottomanism mean in terms of material hegemony?

 Neo-Ottomanism, in terms of physical hegemony, means striving to change the internationally recognized borders, remove the effects of the agreements that followed the First World War, and return to before the conditions were arranged according to them, especially the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, that is, the nullification of the consequences of that treaty of secularism and its concession  what Turkey considered its rights in Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, forcing it to demarcate its borders with Bulgaria and Greece, and considering the Bosphorus strait an international waterway, Turkey does not get any fees from international navigation operations in which it takes place.

 Erdogan’s Turkey wants to blow up all of these effects at once, which means trying to reach its hegemony to the maximum extent possible and violating international conventions and realities of the world and the modern international community, and what this may entail in terms of direct military aggression or attempts to dominate and indirect infliction.

 * What is the relationship of the neo-Ottoman conception to the Union and Progress Society?

 The relationship of the neo-Ottoman conception with union and progress, that both constitute a mixture between a racist nationalist vision and a strict imperial central Islamism, and that in both of them there is a structural willingness to engage in internal and external struggles to achieve their goals.

 In this lie growing dangers that threaten not only the Middle East and Europe, but also Turkey as a country and as a political society, in which some intellectual and societal gains relating to some issues, such as secularism, the status of women, the transfer of power and some democratic lines linked to the existence of modern elections and values, have been enshrined in a relative manner.  .

 * How did they gradually develop this policy throughout history?

 The policy of justice and development, which seemed to set the neo-Ottoman as a firm goal for it from the beginning, passed through many stages, as it showed openness to the region, resolved its problems with it, sought to zero internal problems, and adhered to the prevailing political values ​​in Turkey, especially secular Ataturkism, and glorified secularism.  Its economic gains and the expansion of its supportive environment internally and externally, but soon after this was achieved, it revealed its face and its neo-Ottoman hallucination.

 It became clear that she did not get rid of the mentality of defeat inflicted on Turkey in the First World War, so she turned against the negotiations she launched with the internationalist leader and thinker Abdullah Ocalan and began to change the system of Turkish secular laws and constants and undermine the gains of women, and even changed the nature of the Turkish political system and transformed it from a parliamentary system  to a presidential system to centralize more powers in the hands of Erdogan.

  In the context of the Syrian event, instead of the Justice and Development’s victory for the will of the Syrian people who revolted against tyranny, Turkey won only the forces of political Islam, and it did not hesitate to wage war on the most important forms of the victory of the Syrian revolution represented by the emergence of the democratic self-management experience, the consolidation of its institutions and the success of its democratic forces  Which believes in the unity of Syria and its pluralistic character and in the democratization of the country, in defeating the terrorist Daesh and in the victory of an environment of enlightenment, pluralism, partnership and democracy.

 Inflicting harm on the (Self-Management) experience, obstructing it and occupying Syrian lands, its people succeeded in settling their will and succeeding in managing their affairs (northern and eastern Syria), only because the majority of its people are Kurds, is the most important guide for Turkish policy, in addition to the hostile stances of major countries that accompanied it.  In the region, Egypt, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the axis of Arab rationality.

 In sum, the true face of Erdogan’s Turkey appeared, after the latter managed to internally and changed many of the rules of the political and social game in it, and after he had the opportunity to intervene and dominate in many countries of the region, even the occupation that many Syrian regions suffered.

 It seemed that the most important and perhaps main direction of Erdogan's policy is linked to the neo-Ottoman project, which legitimizes domination and occupation by its owners, striking international facts and covenants, and causing great harm to regional and international security and peace.

 A

 ANHA