Tag: Ottoman Empire

Pres. Erdogan Admits that Turkey is… The ‘Continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire

By Harut Sassounian

Publisher, The California Courier

www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

For many decades Turkish officials have outright denied the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide. In recent years, however, some Turks have made the excuse that today’s Turkish Republic is not responsible for the Armenian Genocide because it was committed by the Ottoman Empire, a defunct state.

With this pretext, the issue is no longer whether genocide was committed or not, but who is responsible for it. Those who use this justification, claim that the Republic of Turkey is neither the successor nor the continuation of the Ottoman Empire, but a new and separate state!

This argument has gradually grown weaker as Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan began speaking and acting as an Ottoman Sultan! Two weeks ago, the Turkish leader made matters worse for his country when he, according to The Times of London, asserted that “modern Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire — a direct contradiction of Ataturk’s ideology, which cast the Imperial era as backwards, stale and to be discarded and forgotten rather than celebrated.”

By stating that Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan effectively concedes that today’s Turkey is responsible for the actions of the Ottoman Empire. In other words, the Republic of Turkey, which inherited the Ottoman Empire’s assets, also inherited its liabilities!

To confirm his allegiance to the Ottoman dynasty, Erdogan attended a ceremony earlier this month to mark the centenary of the death of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the ‘Red Sultan,’ who has been rehabilitated by the current government. Erdogan conveniently ignored the fact that the Red Sultan had ordered the killing of 300,000 Armenians from 1894 to 1896, known as the Hamidian massacres. As reported by The Times of London, “The descendants of one of the last Ottoman sultans are to be given Turkish citizenship, ending almost a century of outcast and ostracism.”

According to The Times of London, “Abdulhamid II ruled from 1876 to 1909, and was much maligned in Kemal Ataturk’s modern Turkish republic for his authoritarianism, anti-Westernism and clampdowns on the media. Yet, in the era of President Erdogan he has been rehabilitated. A television series, ‘Payitaht’, which depicts the life of Abdulhamid in glowing terms has been lauded by Mr. Erdogan as essential viewing for Turkish youths to find out about their country’s history…. ‘We see Sultan Abdulhamid II as one of the most important, most visionary, most strategic-minded personalities who have put their stamps on the last 150 years of our state,’ Mr. Erdogan said. ‘We should stop seeing the Ottomans and the Republic as two eras that conflict with one another.’ Abdulhamid died in 1918 and at celebrations for the centenary this week, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that he would personally oversee the granting of citizenships to the family.”

Arrogantly, Erdogan then warned that U.S. soldiers in Northern Syria would soon receive the ‘Ottoman slap,’ according to Reuters. He was “referring to a half-legendary Turkish martial move that involves a potent open-palm hit, resulting in a one-hit knockout or even skull fractures and death.” An illustration published by the pro-government Turkish media shows Pres. Donald Trump receiving an ‘Ottoman slap’ by Pres. Erdogan. Furthermore, Reuters quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu stating that Washington was backing the YPG [Kurdish forces in Syria] because it shared the same “Marxist, communist, atheist” ideology!

Returning to the issue of whether the Republic of Turkey is a brand new and separate entity from the Ottoman Empire, Prof. Alfred de Zayas, an international law expert, explained in an essay titled, “The Genocide against the Armenians 1915-1923 and the relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention,” that a ‘successor state’ is responsible for the crimes committed by its predecessor regime. Moreover, a state that is a ‘continuation’ of a previous entity is even more responsible because there is no difference between the two, as admitted by Erdogan two weeks ago.

In addition, Alfred de Zayas quoted in his study Prof. M. Cherif Bassiouni stating that “In international law, the doctrine of legal continuity and principles of State responsibility make a ‘successor Government’ liable in respect of claims arising from a former government’s violations.” Prof. de Zayas concluded that “the claims of the Armenians for their wrongfully confiscated properties did not disappear with the change from the Sultanate to the regime of Mustafa Kemal.”

Finally, Prof. de Zayas affirmed that “the principle of responsibility of successor States has been held to apply even when the State and government that committed the wrongs were not that of the ‘successor State.’ This principle was formulated, inter alia, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Lighthouse Arbitration case.”

We can conclude that Pres. Erdogan, by affirming that today’s Republic of Turkey is the continuation of the Ottoman Empire, has inadvertently admitted that Turkey is responsible for the genocidal, territorial and economic damages caused by the Ottoman Empire to the Armenian people. Erdogan’s confession should be presented as evidence when demands emanating from the Turkish Genocide of Armenians are submitted to the World Court.

February 20, 2018
The Ottoman Empire’s First Map of the Newly Minted United States, Nick Danforth

What did the United States look like to Ottoman observers in 1803? In this map, the newly independent U.S. is labeled “The Country of the English People” (“İngliz Cumhurunun Ülkesi”). The Iroquois Confederacy shows up as well, labeled the “Government of the Six Indian Nations.” Other tribes shown on the map include the Algonquin, Chippewa, Western Sioux (Siyu-yu Garbî), Eastern Sioux (Siyu-yu Şarkî), Black Pawnees (Kara Panis), and White Pawnees (Ak Panis).

The Ottoman Empire, which at the time this map was drawn included much of the Balkans and the Middle East, used a version of the Turkish language written in a slightly modified Arabic script. Ottoman script works particularly well on maps, because it allows cartographers to label wide regions by elongating the lines connecting individual letters.

This appears to be the first Ottoman map of the United States, but Ottoman maps of North America have a much longer history. The first were the 16^th-century nautical charts of the famous Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis. Some of the last, drawn before the new Turkish Republic switched to Latin script in 1928, show air routes spanning the continental U.S.

American relations with the Ottoman Empire in the 19^th century were either commercial or missionary. American missionaries to the empire first tried to win Christian converts. But after meeting with little success, they turned to creating schools to spread the much more popular American gospel of English fluency and engineering excellence.

At times, the mercantile and missionary impulses came into conflict, such as when Greek Christians rebelled against the Ottoman sultan. Many Americans felt their government had a moral duty to stand with co-religionists against a Muslim despot. The U.S. government, however, felt a more pressing duty to stand with its merchants and sea captains, who’d been doing brisk business with the sultan. Supposedly, it was in recognition of U.S. support of the establishment that the empire later sided with the Union during America’s own civil war.

October 17, 2014
Balancing Sharia: The Ottoman Kanun
Balancing Sharia: The Ottoman Kanun

By Professor Edhem EldemBogazici University, Istanbul

Hagia Sophia was used as a church for 916 years but, following the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmed, it was converted into mosque. In 1935 under the order of Atatürk it became a museum

The Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years, spreading from what is now Turkey to span three continents. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) it stretched across most of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Balkans, the Black Sea, and Eastern Europe, and came close to capturing the Austrian capital, Vienna.

The scale of the Ottoman empire’s achievements was made possible by reconciling secular politics with Islam – balancing the demands of the religious establishment with the ambitions of the sultans and the army. For the Ottomans this was the Kanun; a secular legal system that co-existed with religious law or Sharia.

Borrowed from the Arabic qānūn; the word originated from the ancient Greek kanôn (κανών), describing a measure, a norm, a standard, a rule, and by extension a law. In English, the same word is used to describe a high standard, as in a “canon of beauty”; it is also used to describe “canon law,” or the body of laws upheld by the Church.

Sharia is derived directly from the Koran and the Sunnah, or path, of the Prophet Muhammad. Originally designed to regulate a relatively small community of believers, as Islam spread and matured under increasingly complex state structures and ever growing diverse populations, it became difficult to address certain matters based on Sharia alone.
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The Ottoman Empire
- The Ottoman Empire was the one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history
- It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam and Islamic institutions
- It reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-66), when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Hungary, and reached the gates of Vienna
- The Empire began to decline in the 16th Century and was effectively finished off by the WWI and the Balkan Wars
- Why was the Ottoman Empire so successful?
The sultans of the Ottoman Empire realised this and used the Kanun to complement, supplement, and sometimes supplant religious law.

Sharia was simply not sufficient to deal with needs such as taxation, administration, financial matters, or penal law. The basic idea was to complement Sharia with a number of rules and decrees enforced by the secular authority.

Another disadvantage of Sharia was that its application depended greatly on the interpretation of sources by the ulema (scholars), making standardisation difficult. This was particularly true of the Sunnah, the path of the Prophet, best described as the way of life and deeds that he himself followed, advocated, or approved of, and which was recorded by his followers in a series of hadiths (traditions).

The value and meaning given to one tradition or another could vary according to context, and from one legal expert to another. What could satisfy the needs of a small community could easily fail to respond to the requirements of a state administration in terms of scope and predictability.

The Ottomans were not the first Islamic state to make use of secular Kanun; but they brought its use and implementation to an unprecedented level as their state rapidly developed from a frontier principality in the early 14th Century to a fully-fledged empire 200 years later.

This rapid growth had forced the Ottoman elite to develop an ideology of their own, focused on the pre-eminence of the sultan.

Having embraced Islam relatively late, and surrounded by a number of other Muslim states, stressing their own distinctive ideology acquired even greater importance. The initial Ottoman expansion had also taken place at the expense of Christian lands in western Anatolia and the Balkans, particularly the Byzantine Empire, which was reduced to a mere shadow of its past glory.

These contacts had exposed the conquering Ottomans to different legal practices, while at the same time forcing them to work out ways of integrating sizeable non-Muslim populations into the system.

The initial Ottoman expansion took place at the expense of Christian lands in western Anatolia and the Balkans, particularly the Byzantine Empire

The first concrete examples of the codification of Ottoman Kanun took form towards the end of the 15th Century. This was a period of consolidation of sultanic authority following the symbolically crucialconquest of Constantinople in 1453. By becoming a de facto heir to the Roman Empire, via the Byzantine, the Ottomans had progressed from a confederation of frontier warlords to the much more demanding role of an empire under a single and unchallenged rule.

The Kanun was one of the principal instruments of this transformation, by granting to the sultan the power he needed to exercise his authority to the full.

The first such codes, called Kanun-name, or literally “book of law”, had to do with financial and fiscal matters, which lay at the heart of state revenues. Based on custom (örf), these documents generally tried to reconcile previously existing practices with the priorities and needs of the Ottoman state.

The best examples are the numerous Kanun-names granted to individual provinces following their conquest. Typically, such a provincial book of law would maintain most of the taxes and dues existing under the previous rule, and simply adapt them to an Ottoman standard.

‘Fratricide’

One of the most decisive outcomes of the use of Kanun was the redefinition of Ottoman society in a two-tiered hierarchy. At the top, were the askeri, literally the “military,” a tax-exempt ruling class consisting of the “men of the sword,” the “men of the book,” and the “men of the pen.” At the bottom, the rest of the population, labeled as the reaya, the “flock,” whose duty was to produce and pay taxes.

One of the biggest challenges for the Ottomans was to impose secular law at the centre of the empire in order to consolidate the position of the sultan at the pinnacle of power. The most extreme example of this was the “law of fratricide” attributed to Sultan Mehmed II, known as the Conqueror after he took Constantinople in 1453.

The text of this law was brief but terrifying: “Whichever of my sons inherits the sultanate, it behooves (is necessary for) him to kill his brothers in the interest of the world order; most jurists have approved this; let action be taken accordingly.”

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Whichever of my sons inherits the sultanate, it behoves him to kill his brothers in the interest of the world order…”

The law of fratricideUsed in the time of Sultan Mehmed II

This was a perfect example of secular law permitting an act that Sharia would have never condoned – the assassination by a newly enthroned sultan of all his brothers for fear of a repetition of the fratricidal conflicts that had plagued the Ottoman system of succession.

This law was maintained and followed for about a century and a half, until popular reaction and fear of dynastic extinction led to the unfortunate brothers being held in captivity instead of killing them.

The mention in the law that “most jurists have approved this” suggests there was an effort to prove that this law was compatible with Sharia; and also, that this opinion was not unanimous and that there must have been a good deal of arm-twisting to obtain the approval of “most jurists”, unless this was entirely a legal fiction.

This potential tension between Kanun and Sharia provides precious insight into the dynamics of Ottoman power politics and state building during the same period.

These transformations of the Ottoman system present striking similarities with what was happening in Western Europe at the same time. The efforts deployed by all these states to control taxation in order to promote the growth of a central army and bureaucracy are at the very centre of the emergence of the early modern state.

At its height the Ottoman lands stretched over more than one million square miles

Crown and Church were also pitted against each other in the struggle over resources and authority. By trying to exert increasing control over the religious hierarchy, the Ottomans hoped to force it into submission and turn it into yet another instrument of sultanic power.

The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent was a perfect example of this. Religion was gradually brought under state control by the setting up of a hierarchical structure centred in the capital, Istanbul. Any important member of the religious administration had to undergo a centralised process of formation and selection and would depend entirely on the state for any position and promotion.

A new office was also invented to top this structure: that of the sheikhulislam, literally the “leader of Islam”. This individual would oversee the whole system and answer to the sultan, much like the grand vizier would do for secular matters.

Ebussuud Efendi – Suleyman’s sheikhulislam saw to it that conformity between Kanun and Sharia was maintained, at least on paper. The flexibility of his jurisprudence was such that he managed to find ways of legalising interest-bearing loans, a most reprehensible practice by stricter standards of Sharia.

It is rather telling that Suleiman’s nickname in Turkish is not “Magnificent,” but Kanuni, the “Lawgiver,” for it was under his reign the use and formulation of secular law reached its institutional peak.

The initial Ottoman expansion took place at the expense of Christian lands in western Anatolia and the Balkans, particularly the Byzantine Empire

The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors a three-part television series presented by Rageh Omaar can be seen on BBC Two on Sunday from 6 October.
October 11, 2013
Turkey brings a gentle version of the Ottoman empire back to the Balkans
Growing presence in Bosnia has given Turkey an expanding field of influence in Europe
- Michael Birnbaum for the Washington Post
- Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 2 April 2013 14.03 BST
Turkish students in Sarajevo, where two Turkish-run universities have opened. Photograph: Jasmin Brutus/Alamy

Turkey conquered the Balkans five centuries ago. Now Turkish power is making inroads through friendlier means. Two Turkish-run universities have opened in Bosnia’s Ottoman-influenced capital Sarajevo in recent years, bringing an influx of Turkish students and culture to a predominantly Muslim country still reeling from a brutal ethnic war almost two decades ago.

Turkish investment has expanded across the Balkans, even in Croatia and Serbia, where mostly Christian residents remember the sultans from Constantinople (now Istanbul) as occupiers, not liberators. Turkey has helped broker talks between formerly bitter enemies in the Balkans. And the growing presence has given Turkey an expanding field of influence inEurope at a time when the country’s prospects of joining the European Union appear dubious.

“Turkish leaders are working at a new Ottoman empire, a gentle one,” said Amir Zukic, the bureau chief of the Turkish Anadolu news agency’s Sarajevo office, which has expanded in recent months. “Turkey, a former regional power, is trying to come back in a big way.”

Turkey’s presence in Bosnia was largely dormant during the more than 40 years that the Balkan country was part of communist Yugoslavia, which was not receptive to Turkish religious and historical influences. But during the mid-1990s, as Yugoslavia fell apart, Turkish aid started flowing to the Muslims who comprise about half of Bosnia. Since then, Turkish funding has helped reconstruct Ottoman-era monuments that were targets of ethnically motivated destruction.

Now Turkey’s cultural influence is hard to miss. Turkish dignitaries are frequent visitors to Sarajevo. A grand new Turkish embassy is being built near “sniper alley”, a corridor where, during the three-year siege of the capital city in the war, Bosnian Muslims struggling to go about their daily business were frequently shot at by Serbian snipers stationed on nearby hills. Billboards advertise round-trip flights to Istanbul for the equivalent of $75. And this year, a baroque soap opera based on the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, a 16th‑century ruler of the Ottoman empire, has mesmerised couch potatoes in Bosnia’s dreary winter.

The biggest outposts in Bosnia have been the two Turkish-backed universities, which have mostly Turkish student bodies.

At the International University of Sarajevo, students who enter the main door of the building erected two years ago have to pass under the watchful eye of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, the Ottoman ruler who introduced Islam to Bosnia in 1463. The private university is backed by Turkish businessmen who are close to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political party. The university started in 2004 and has grown to 1,500 students. It is shooting for 5,000, the capacity of its new building.

Classes are held in English, and there is a western curriculum heavy on practical subjects such as business and engineering. But both Turkish and Bosnian students say that part of the attraction of the school is the cultural exchange that takes place among the groups. Each cohort has to learn the other’s language.

Administrators are transparent about the school’s ambitions. “The Turks are attracted to come here because they believe that Bosnia, for all its problems, will be in the EU before Turkey is. And they see this as a bridge between two countries,” said Muhamed Hadziabdic, the vice-rector of the school, who is a Bosnian Muslim. Turkish people “like Bosnia”, he said. “It’s European, but it still feels like home. The smell, the culture, it’s recognisably Turkish.”

Bosnian students eye Turkey’s growing economy with interest; their country’s official unemployment rate last year was 46%, far higher than in Turkey. Many of the Turkish students, who make up 65% of the school, say they are there for a taste of freedom away from the watchful eye of their families. Some say they plan to stay in the region and develop businesses.

“When I was little, I wanted to go to a foreign country. I wanted to learn a foreign language,” said Fatih Selcuk, 19, a first-year student from Izmir, Turkey. “Bosnia was in the Ottoman Empire, so it’s similar to Turkey. My father said you should go to Bosnia-Herzegovina, because it’s Slavic but it’s Muslim.”

The other Turkish school in Sarajevo, the International Burch University, opened in 2008 and has connections to Fethullah Gulen, an influential Muslim Turkish preacher who runs an international religious and educational movement from Pennsylvania.

Officials at Burch also speak of their desire to forge connections between Turkey and the Balkans. Students there tend to be more religiously conservative, but as with the International University of Sarajevo, the curriculum is secular.

The Turkish expansion into the region comes as Turkey’s long-held dream of joining the EU seems remote. Western European powers, especially Germany, have been concerned that Turkey’s 74 million residents could flood Europe in search of jobs. Some officials have questioned whether the Muslim-majority country is European at all.

But Bosnia is firmly within Europe – even though Sarajevo’s old city is a dense warren of shops and centuries-old storefronts that is reminiscent of Istanbul. Turkey’s expansion into European regions that once were part of its empire is one way of making up for being excluded from the EU, some analysts say.

Turkey’s growing presence has upset some Bosnian Serbs, who maintain a parallel government in Bosnia under the complicated system dictated by 1995 peace agreements. Officials from the parallel government have complained that the Bosnian Muslim part of the country is falling under the influence of a former imperial power.

“For Islamists, a return of Turkey back to the Balkans is a fulfilment of ambitions. But for many Serbs and also for many Croats, their national struggle in the 19th century is still in their minds,” said Esad Hecimovic, the editor of news programmes on OMT, the private television station that has been airing the soap opera about Suleiman the Magnificent.

Still, even Serbia and Croatia have welcomed Turkish investment. Turkey was the third-largest investor in Mediterranean Croatia in the first three-quarters of 2012, and Erdogan has pursued closer ties with Serbia, a long-time rival. Turkish diplomats also have worked to broker talks between the Serbian and Bosnian governments.

The efforts in the Balkans have given Turkey a new venue for economic growth as it has grappled with ethnic violence that has engulfed neighbouring Syria. There, a diverse nation that also was once part of the Ottoman Empire is threatening to tear itself apart – a development that has similarities to what happened in Yugoslavia.

Many in the Balkans think they are merely a waypoint on the route toward Turkey’s broader goals. “They are a big regional power,” said Hayruddin Somun, a former Bosnian ambassador to Turkey. “The Balkans was always their path to conquering Europe. They had to come through here.”

• This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from the Washington Post
April 3, 2013
Turkey: Reuniting The Ottoman Empire – Analysis

Turkey: Reuniting The Ottoman Empire – Analysis

By Brett Daniel Shehadey — (February 28, 2013)

Turkey is reportedly in pursuit of a better alternative to the EU. They have been engaged in a stall of civilizations with their European neighbors and may sue for irreconcilable differences. Among many are the barriers to full membership, discrimination of migrant workers, Cyprus 2012 frozen relationship, and economic recession of the Eurozone.

In their last issue for January/February, Foreign Affairs’ managing editor Jonathon Tepperman interviewed Turkish President Abdullah Gul who made a pitch in the conversation for closer Turkey-US relationship.

Last month Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a dialog member. SCO is an Eastern economic and security partnership based in Beijing, China. Its full members include Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Interestingly, Turkey shares a great deal of history with the steppe countries in SCO and retains a positive image for the most central parts of Central Asia.

What does it all mean?

The US-Turkey relationship offers the state a chance to tap into military advantages, regional power, trade, and still remain an important NATO member. It can easily fit into the US, NATO and the EU, but it will be difficult for them to stay with the US, NATO and SCO.

The EU does not offer Turkey much politically or economically. In many ways Turkey will have to chance socio-politically as well as economically. The demands for full membership have only resulted in grid lock relations. Moreover, the decline and fall of the European economy has beckoned a growing wealthy Turkey to seek other markets and partnerships outside the Eurozone.

Turkey is shopping for power and regional influence. They are hedging their bets between the US, the EU, and China.

This is done for several reasons: One, it allows Turkey to test the waters and find the best strategic partner to work with in the future. After all, so many have said that the future is between these two world powers of the US and China so why stay with Europe?

“The economic powers of the world are shifting from west to east,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Is Turkey preparing for an Eastern future?

Either it will be with the West, the East or for a while— both of them—whatever will maximize their freedom of actions politically, boost their storehouses, and rekindle the Ottoman.

Another reason for Erdogan’s recent visit to Beijing and Gul’s outreach to the US has been presented by a number of commenters to force the EU to get serious about Turkey’s status. Turkey can work with the US and the EU but the EU would rather have Turkey all to themselves. Meanwhile, Turkey would rather teeter between the US and China; although they welcome any and all investment.

Turkey is in a good position right now as a ‘middle’ state. It is growing as the 15 largest economy in the world. It favors a modern secular government but an Eastern philosophy. It maintains a religious cultural heritage that it does not want European’s to meddle with. The recent position, trade and partnerships have awarded their soft power skills many gains in foreign affairs at what some have dubbed neo-Ottomanism, as they place dabble in governments anywhere from North Africa to the Caspian Sea.

As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu: “We can build diplomatic relations of equal status with any big or small country which was previously in Ottoman lands. This is what modern diplomacy requires.”

Turkey’s influence in the region and positive image continues to grow outside of Europe; meanwhile, its relationship with the EU remains one of stagnation. It is as simple as this: Turkey is not welcome in the EU and is looking for other cooperatives to boost power.

Turkey’s exit strategy from the Europeans may be working as the EU rushes to reassess its role. Currently, Turkey is only an “associate” member to the Union. Full EU membership has been set at 2013, but more recently it might take up to 2023 for Turkey to comply with EU law before entrance and accession.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle stated that: “If we aren’t careful, the day will come when Europe’s interest in Turkey is greater than Turkey’s interest in Europe.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel races to Turkey to mend the relationship. “In recent times, negotiations stalled somewhat and I am in favor of opening a new chapter in order to move forward,” Ms. Merkel remarked. She has consistently expressed the term “privileged partnership” in place of full-fledged member, in which Turkey would have to overcome odious requirements. Norway, for example, has close and positive relations with the EU but is not a full member.

“I think a long negotiating path lies ahead,” offered Merkel. “Although I am skeptical, I agreed with the continuation of membership discussions.”

Merkel did not go to Germany alone just to chat either—she brought a few industrial German heavy weights with her. As Financial Times reports, Chief Executives Johannes Teyssen of Eon, Peter Löscher of Siemens and Christoph Frantz of Lufthansa also made the trip.

Perhaps they will be able to purchase Turkey’s entry back into the EU, at least partially. In that case, Turkey may have just conducted one of the most brilliant diplomatic maneuvers played by a mid-sized state in the early 21st century. A bid for the SCO could have been just a political ploy for greater German investment and economic gain—and potentially eased requirements of entry. At the same time, Turkey befriends new industries in the East and greater political influence in its new Ottoman league.

The SCO gesture still offers an escape from the EU and continual leverage. The move reunites a lost lineage more closely together and a hearty embrace by more like-minded states, as Erdogen is credited to crave.

The SCO is no true alternative to NATO but the security alliance shift is not stressed by Turkey; nor has NATO ever required full EU membership. If anything, Turkey appears safest in NATO but even that is shaky.

With the Syrian Civil War and Iran’s potential Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) capabilities, Turkey is not seriously considering leaving NATO but it would be an interesting bridge if it actually did join SCO as a full member—an event likely not to happen any time soon.

This is due to differences of other partial members. Iran, for example, is an observer member of SCO and would not want anything to do with it—as Turkey partakes in a more substantial role in the Syrian Civil War—a move likely to be the great divide, separating it from its would-be Eastern partners.

Still it is interesting timing, being that NATO is operating within their country and preparing anti-missile defense systems and the funneling of covert supplies to the Free Syrian Army. Turkey is the state in the middle of a tug-of-war shouting out to rile either side into pulling it the hardest to their respective side.

As Foreign Minister Davutoglu says: “Model partnership is not an issue of preference, but it is a necessity.”

March 1, 2013
Is Turkey ready to become a ‘binational’ state?

The Republic of Turkey was the heir of the multinational, multi-faith and multi-linguistic Ottoman Empire. Its founding fathers sought to create a homogenous nation-state similar to the attempts of the ethnic groups that had previously seceded from the empire. Almost a century later, despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the matter, we can safely say that this goal was to a large extent achieved.

However, some groups, primarily the Kurds, were able to resist the nation-state project. Ultimately, Turkey has reached a new stage of its century-old nation-state project.

There were many reasons why the completion of the nation-state project through the inclusion of the Kurds has not been entirely possible: The first reason was the size and density of the Kurdish population. Secondly, Islamic practices played an important role in sustaining the Kurdish ethnic identity and language. Thirdly, the Kurdish identity was also enhanced and protected by democracy, social mobilization and the market economy. Fourthly, the fact that most Kurds lived outside Turkey also mattered. Another reason linked to this is the military advantages bestowed upon the Kurds by regional conflicts. In addition, globalization, the promotion of human rights, and enhanced communication technologies have all generally contributed to the development of micro-nationalisms.

Finally, the efforts of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to build an identity and a political status through the use of violence have also hampered the full realization of the Turkish nation state project.

Today, the Turkish government is trying to come up with a solution that will keep its own Kurds inside Turkey. As former prime minister and president Süleyman Demirel declared in the early 1990s that he recognized the Kurdish reality, Prime Minister Erdoğan has also expressed that he recognizes and respects the Kurdish identity. He has also declared the end of assimilation and “denial” policies.

Erdoğan’s statements show that he also knows how difficult this process is. Though currently at the apex of his power, he also knows that he cannot escape from his fate. The question is this: How can we satisfy the Kurds who are represented by the PKK, and who want to rise up from the position of an ethnic group to the position of a nation with political institutions inside Turkey? And how can we do this without making the Turks mad? Erdoğan hopes that Islam will be the answer.

The Turkish government took irreversible steps when it knocked on the door of the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan on Imralı island for negotiations. Although the government does not explicitly state this, Turkey is on the fast track to becoming a binational state. The real debate involves how this will be achieved and how the new state will look. Notwithstanding the final outcome, the Turks have already completed their nation building process, while the Kurds are on the verge of an uncertain adventure in their latecomer nation-building process.

February/21/2013

PRINTER FRI

via NİHAT ALİ ÖZCAN – Is Turkey ready to become a ‘binational’ state?.

February 28, 2013