Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is at it, disrupting the region again. This time, he is threatening aggression not only against Greek islands, but also actually attacking the Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq as well as the Yazidis in their homeland of Sinjar, Iraq.
Turkey’s neo-Ottoman expansionist goals in the region appear to be the major motive behind its aggressive policies. The Republic of Turkey will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2023. Erdogan has publicly claimed parts of northern Syria, and Sinjar and Kirkuk in Iraq as part of Turkey in his dream for a new Ottoman Empire. In 2016, for instance, he referred to Misak-ı Milli (“the National Pact”), which contains six decisions about the borders of the Ottoman Empire made by the last term of the Ottoman Parliament in 1920. The National Pact includes claims to parts of Iraq and Syria. “We have responsibilities in accordance with Misak-ı Milli,” Erdogan said.
“Concerning ourselves with Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia and other brother regions is both a duty and a right of Turkey. Turkey is not just Turkey… Our physical borders are different from the borders of our hearts.”
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In line with this expansionist ideology, Erdogan announced a new military incursion into northern Syria in late May, to create a 30 km “safe zone” in Syria along Turkey’s southern border. “We will be clearing Tell Rifaat and Manbij in Syria from terrorists,” Erdogan said. This means that Turkey will once again attack Kurds in Syria, in an attempt to push them out of the region and claim their lands. These Kurdish groups that Erdogan labels “terrorists,” however, just so happen to be US allies who fought ISIS.
On June 5, Syria condemned Turkey’s recent attacks in the north of the country, calling them a “violation of international law” and of its sovereignty. Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying they were following the “hostile” actions by Turkey, and its constant violations of Syrian sovereignty, which have “claimed the lives of a number of innocent people.”
Meanwhile, Erdogan’s expansionist policies keep targeting Iraq, Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and the Turkish-occupied northern part of the Republic of Cyprus, among other places.
Read more: Gatestone Institute
