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Erdogan's
Ambition to Expand Turkey's 1923 Borders
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Excerpt of an article originally published under the title
"Erdogan's Neo-Ottoman Plans."
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Last
month, President Erdogan called Turkey's borders laid down under the
1923 Treaty of Lausanne "the greatest injustice to be done to the
country and to the nation."
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Speaking at a public rally on October 22, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said that "We did not accept our borders
voluntarily." He went on to say, "At the time [when the current
borders were drawn] we may have agreed to it but the real mistake is to
surrender to that sacrifice." What does all that mean?
On October 19, Erdogan spoke of Turkey being constrained by foreign
powers who "aim to make us forget our Ottoman and Seldjuk
history," when Turkey's forefathers held territory stretching across
Central Asia and the Middle East.
His words came at a time when the pro-government media was publishing
maps depicting Ottoman borders encompassing an area that included Iraq's
second largest city, Mosul, a former Ottoman province.
On the same day, he said:
[In 1914] Our territories were as large
as 2.5 million square kilometers, and after nine years at the time of the
Lausanne Treaty it diminished to 780,000 square kilometres.... To insist
on [the 1923 borders] is the greatest injustice to be done to the country
and to the nation. While everything is changing in today's world, we
cannot see to preserving our status of 1923 as a success.
Erdogan's newfound claims seem to refer not only to wish to regain
hegemony to the west (Greece) but also about the south (Syria) and the
southeast (Iraq). Turkey evidently wishes to be part of an Iraqi- and
Kurdish-led offensive against Mosul, controlled since 2014 by the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Turkey, it appears, would like to be part
of the operation primarily to make sure that post-ISIS Mosul is "Sunni enough" and not Shiite.
Erdogan's border claims seem to
point west (Greece), south (Syria) and southeast (Iraq).
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In Syria, Turkey is targeting Kurds with the help of its allies, the
semi-jihadist Islamists under the umbrella force of the Free Syrian Army
(FSA). The Turkish military launched its land incursion into Syria on
August 24 and has been controlling the area ever since, supporting from
behind various Sunni Islamist factions under the SFA. On October 20, one
day after Erdogan spoke of the "injustice of the 1923 borders,"
the Turkish military said its warplanes bombed U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northern
Syria.
These bombings took place as Kurdish fighters were advancing against
ISIS militants near Afrin, a city about 40 kilometers northwest of
Aleppo. Turkey said its attacks killed 160 to 200 Kurdish fighters, but a
predominantly Kurdish political party in Turkey, the HDN, said 14 people,
including four civilians, were killed.
The move not only exposed the allied campaign against ISIS to
unforeseen operational risks but also could create military tensions
between Turkey and Syria, the latter supported by Iran and Russia. The Syrian
government quickly warned that further Turkish planes in Syrian airspace
will be "brought down by all means available."
Erdogan's pro-Ottoman revisionism
appeals to tens of millions of Turks.
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On October 22, local sources informed the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights that the Turkish shelling was still continuing on areas
controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. On that day alone Turkish
forces launched more than 200 tank and artillery shells and missiles.
Erdogan's pro-Ottoman revisionism may appeal to tens of millions of
Turks' newfound pride, to their yearning for their forefathers' glorious
past, and may even come in the form of more votes for the already popular
president. But this irredentist sentiment, especially if further
supported by military hardware, will only make a turbulent region even
more turbulent -- including Turkish territory.
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the
Middle East Forum.
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