The “New Turkey Strategic Research Center” (Yeni Turkiye Stratejik Arastirmalar Merkezi) published a 1450-pages book dedicated to what is widely accepted as the “Holy Oath” of the Turkish people, the “National Agreement” (Misak-ı Millî).

As reported by “Militaire.gr”, the analysts are openly referring to the territorial claims against all their neighboring countries.

This wouldn’t be of any real importance if it wasn’t endorsed by the Turkish President Erdogan. In fact, the book’s foreword was written by the President himself, making it practically his Manifesto. His foreword is titled “The key of the parenthesis that never closed: Misak-ı Millî”.

So here is a small selection, as published by the Turkish website “Odatv”, of what he has written. This could help us help us get a glimpse of his thoughts and intentions…

“The Turkish Republic may have been founded in 1923, but its roots go much deeper. The Turkish Republic is not the first, but it is our last state.

Our country has a historic past of more than 2.200 years. There are many facts, examples of our glorious past that we should draw lessons from.

The first abruption took place at the beginning of WWI, which is also called the “War of Sharing”. It’s called like that because of the sharing of the territories of the Ottoman Empire which held the keys of oil, the Suez Canal and international trading.

When the Ottoman Empire was entering the War its territories were 2,5 million km. When we founded our Republic we had 780.000 km left.

The Ottoman Parliament declared the Misak-ı Millî, the claim of the minimum of territories we could accept. The National Assembly that convened after the foundation of our Republic fully accepted this “National Agreement” that added to our existing borders Mosul, Kirkuk, Aleppo, the Western Thrace, Batum, Cyprus and a few islands.

You can understand our interest and our involvement in what happens in Syria. Egypt, Iraq, Libya, the Balkans and Caucasus by looking back at our historic past. History will give the best answer to those that say “what business does Turkey have in these places?”

It is crystal clear: WWI is not over yet. We will continue the struggle and our efforts with the strength we draw from our history and our culture, against those that try to cover up the blood with blood and barbarism with barbarism. The prime condition for our struggle is not to forget Misak-ı Millî.”

It is important to keep in mind that these are the writings of the Turkish President and not some extremist leader of a small political party. These are mainstream ideas in Turkey.

President Erdogan couldn’t be clearer about his future intentions regarding our neighborhood…

The question is, what do we do about it? Reduce the military service a couple of months, maybe?…