by Anne-Christine Hoff
In a blow to the secularist legacy of modern Turkey, the high court declared Istanbul's famous Hagia Sophia museum to be a mosque. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the move the "second conquest of Istanbul." (Photo: Arild Vågen
On July 10, 2020, Turkey's high administrative court annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that had turned Istanbul's famous Hagia Sophia mosque into a museum, dealing a further blow to the secularist legacy of modern Turkey's founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Shortly afterward, a presidential decree transferred the site's ownership from the ministry of culture to the directorate of religious affairs (diyanet), and two weeks later, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a nationally televised speech where he lauded the move as the "second conquest of Istanbul" and a major step to the "liberation" of the al-Aqsa mosque.
What does this Islamist grandstanding mean for Turkey's 175,000-strong Christian community?[2] Does it herald the looming demise of this community just as the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and the conversion of its grand Hagia Sophia cathedral to a mosque signified the destruction of Eastern Christendom?
Read more here (S0urce:https://www.meforum.org/)
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Turkish Imperialism: When Will Turkey Annex Northern Syria?
by Rauf Baker
In its quest to fulfill its expansionist ambitions, Turkey is pursuing a systematic Turkification policy in areas under its control in northern Syria. This takes various forms—demographic, economic, educational—and even the orchestration of environmental extermination. Fundamental to this strategy is the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Kurds and the resettling of Arabs and Turkmen in their place.
Ankara's Turkification package includes, among other things, historic claims and changing the names of villages and public squares. Turkey and its proxies provide various essential services for the locals with the eventual object of linking Syrian cities and towns to Turkish provinces and making their inhabitants completely dependent on Turkey.
Ultimately, Ankara seeks to impose a fait accompli, possibly aiming to redraw borders at some point in the future. How long will the international community shut its eyes to this creeping neo-Ottoman imperialism?
by Rauf Baker
In its quest to fulfill its expansionist ambitions, Turkey is pursuing a systematic Turkification policy in areas under its control in northern Syria. This takes various forms—demographic, economic, educational—and even the orchestration of environmental extermination. Fundamental to this strategy is the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Kurds and the resettling of Arabs and Turkmen in their place.
Ankara's Turkification package includes, among other things, historic claims and changing the names of villages and public squares. Turkey and its proxies provide various essential services for the locals with the eventual object of linking Syrian cities and towns to Turkish provinces and making their inhabitants completely dependent on Turkey.
Ultimately, Ankara seeks to impose a fait accompli, possibly aiming to redraw borders at some point in the future. How long will the international community shut its eyes to this creeping neo-Ottoman imperialism?
Read more here (S0urce:https://www.meforum.org/)
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