Unravelling the Neo-Ottoman Dreams of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Abstract

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan famously stated in his speech in 2016 at the commemoration event in the 78th anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's passing to eternitythat 'the world is bigger than 5.' Similarly, Turkey is bigger than Turkey. In other words, we cannot be confined to 780 thousand square kilometers because our physical boundaries are different from the boundaries of our hearts. Our brothers in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hasakah, Aleppo, Homs, Misrata, Skopje, Crimea, and the Caucasus might be outside our physical boundaries, but they are all inside the boundaries of our heart. They are in the middle of our hearts." Perhaps, the reality of the statement is felt across West Asia and North Africa (the Middle East and North Africa) with Erdogan's recent adventure in Libya. Erdogan has been pushing for a greater role for Turkey in the region and beyond. This further got manifested recently with the authorization by the Parliament of Turkey to send troops to support the UN-backed Fayez al-Serraj government in Libya, which has been challenged by General Khalifa Haftar, for over a month. 325 MPs of Parliament of Turkey voted in favor of the motion which included Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) and Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP) whereas 184 against Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), the Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP), and İyi Partis (IP, Conservative Good Party).