Turkey triggers the final dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire

Modern Turkey is what is left of the dismembered Ottoman Empire. Since it is composed of a variety of tribes, religions, languages, and ethnicities, it is susceptible to even further disintegration.

Modern Turkey was founded following the abolishment of the last Ottoman Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the ‘Father of Turks’) in 1924. Atatürk served as President of Turkey from 1923 to 1938 and modernized the country in terms of justice and education; he changed the Turkish alphabet from a modified and difficult to learn Arabic script that few were literate in to a near-universally understood Latin form; and he attempted to introduce a European way of life.

In reality, however, Turkey remained a west Asian, Islamic country that was never able to achieve the European identity that Atatürk dreamed of.

In the last 30 years, Turkey had several opportunities to set a course towards a realistic and stable relationship with the European Union. Western Europeans saw in Turkey a large growing market where they could sell their products and a metropolis of several million Turks who migrated to Europe as cheap labor. Europeans wanted Turkey close, but not in Europe.

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Turkey triggers the final dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire | New Europe

EU to coordinate request for NATO’s participation in Libya mission – Alexandra Brzozowski and Sarantis Michalopoulos

EU foreign minister met on Monday (15 June) with their US counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, amid a widening transatlantic rift over Israel and requests from some member states to step up cooperation on Libya.

During the meeting, some EU member states brought up the issue of the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean where the EU is “increasingly concerned about the recent escalations from Turkey,” EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

“In any case, the situation is becoming worse,” Borrell admitted.

Asked whether Pompeo agreed to send a “transatlantic message” to Turkey, Borrell said the US side has been “considering the situation in the Mediterranean, but mainly in relation to the situation in Libya”.

Asked how the US is going to be involved and what other steps could be taken on Turkey’s behaviour, Borrell said the next EU foreign affairs minister’s meeting “will put the issue of our relations with Turkey on the agenda”.

However, while ministers “haven’t gone into detail on the situation in Libya” during their exchange, EU defence ministers are set to discuss Libya and Operation Irini on Tuesday (16 June).

“Allies are currently discussing how NATO could support the EU’s new maritime mission Irini,” a NATO official said. “It is important that the UN arms embargo is fully implemented.”

NATO member Turkey has strongly backed the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Fayez al-Sarraj, which in recent weeks has recaptured all remaining outposts in western Libya from pro-Haftar loyalists, who had sought to seize the capital Tripoli in a 14-month offensive.

On the other hand, Turkey has reacted negatively to Operation Irini before, saying it was biased, as there is no similar arms embargo on Libya’S southern land border, from where it is believed that pro-Haftar loyalists are getting their weapons to fight the GNA.

Note EU-Digest: "The EU should  use their own new combined naval forces IRINI to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya if the US/NATO does not have the courage to tell Turkey's Erdogan to get out of Libya. It The EU should  use their own new combined naval forces IRINI to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya if the US/NATO does not have the courage to tell Turkey's Erdogan to get out of Libya. It also shows once again that it is high time for the EU NATO member states to get their own defense force operating asap, and pull out of the outdated and dysfunctional NATO alliance spearheaded by the US . Case in point, NATO member Turkey, even though it is a member of NATO, unfortunately, in name only. For some time now,Turkey under Erdogan's leadership has acted as the "lone ranger".in the NATO. All we have to do is look at is Turkey's invasion of Syria and now Turkey's adventures in Libya. Is Erdogan trying to revive the Ottoman Empire ? ".

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EU to coordinate request for NATO’s participation in Libya mission – EURACTIV.com

Turkey: Resentment over 1916 deal still drives Turkey foreign policy

Resentment over the Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France that carved up the Middle East from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire remains, 100 years later, a major factor in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's foreign policy.

The May 1916 accord, signed by two British and French diplomats as defeat began to loom in World War I for Germany and its allies, created spheres of influence in the Ottoman-ruled Middle East which to a large extent helped define the borders of modern states including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel.

After the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, the state stepped back from Ottoman imperialism, focusing on building a strong nation within its own borders.

But since Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, it has pursued a more ambitious foreign policy, seeking to increase Turkish influence in formerly Ottoman-controlled regions from Bosnia to Saudi Arabia.

Turkey's leadership, accused of neo-Ottomanism by critics, has never hidden its scorn for the Sykes-Picot accord which it says created artificial barriers between Muslim states and deprived Turkey of its natural influence in the region.

"We have always opposed Sykes-Picot because Sykes-Picot divided our region and alienated our cities from each other," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in March.

He said the turmoil of the Arab Spring was used to thwart Turkish plans to reverse the outcome of the Sykes-Picot accord, such as by creating a free economic zone with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

And now Turkey's enemies are working to create a "new Sykes-Picot" by dividing up Iraq and Syria, he said, as Kurds in particular seek their own autonomous regions.

Read more: Resentment over 1916 deal still drives Turkey foreign policy - Yahoo7

Armenia: Turkey and Armenia Host Clashing Centennial Memorials - by Noah Rayman

Commemorations of two 1915 events—the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey and the Turkish stand at Gallipoli—have caused tension More than 60 leaders and representatives from around the world converged on the Armenian capital on Friday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of a period during which more than 1 million Armenians were killed in Turkey. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President François Hollande both attended the ceremony, while the White House dispatched Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

The anniversary of the 1915 killings, in what was then the eastern edge of the Ottoman Empire, has coincided with a surge in international awareness. In the past month, global icons ranging from Pope Francis to Kim Kardashian (who has Armenian ancestry) have ruffled Turkish feathers by shedding light on the killings and using the term “genocide,” which the Turkish government rejects. And as world envoys gather in Yerevan, similar ceremonies will be held in cities around the world.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottomans rounded up Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul in the beginning of what historians widely consider a genocidal act of bloodshed. In an article years later about a violent Armenian campaign for vengeance, TIME Magazine described the killings - click on the link below for the complete report

 

Note EU-Digest: One hundred years now this argument between Armenia and Turkey has been going on.

 

If anyone would take the time to study the history or even review the basic facts available in the two countries archives (Turkey allows you to look at theirs - Armenians don't so far). 

 

In this case, where the waters are still murky, our fellow European,  the President of Germany, the Pope and many other leaders should  have checked all the facts, before making any rash statements on the issue or mentioning the word genocide.

Indeed terrible atrocities took place on both sides - but the figure of 1.5, constantly quoted, mainly by Armenians, as to the number of Armenian victims is fictitious. There were not even that number of Armenians living in the whole of Turkey at that time.

Hopefully some time soon some independent forum (UN) can come up with a realistic answer to what now seems to have become a profitable venture for the Armenians and a very sad, but time consuming issue for everyone else.

Read more: Turkey and Armenia Host Clashing Centennial Memorials | TIME

FT.com - An Ottoman warning for indebted America - by Niall Ferguson

For the complete report from the FT.com click on this link

An Ottoman warning for indebted America - by Niall Ferguson

Future historians will look back on the current decade as a turning point comparable with that of the Seventies. No, not the 1970s. This is not going to be another piece pointing out the coincidence of an unpopular Republican president, soaring oil prices, a sagging dollar and an unwinnable faraway war. I am talking about the 1870s. At first sight, the resemblances across 130 years may not seem obvious. The 1870s were a time when conservative leaders such as Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister, were powerful and popular. It was a time of falling commodity prices, after the financial crash of 1873 and the opening up of the American plains to agriculture. And it was an era of currency stability, as one country after another followed the British lead by pegging to gold. Yet, on closer inspection, we are indeed living through a global shift in the balance of power very similar to that which occurred in the 1870s. This is the story of how an over-extended empire sought to cope with an external debt crisis by selling off revenue streams to foreign investors. The empire that suffered these setbacks in the 1870s was the Ottoman empire. Today it is the US.

Salon.com: How the Turks made Europe safe for capitalism

For the complete report from Salon.com click on this link

How the Turks made Europe safe for capitalism

The basic argument is not new in historical circles. The theory is that the incursions of the Ottoman Empire -- all the way to the gates of Vienna! -- forced European principalities to stop squabbling against each other and join forces against a common enemy. This is supposed to have had a huge impact on the ability of fledgling Protestantism to survive the bloody Counter-Reformation. Even mighty Catholic potentates like Charles V and the King of the Hapsburgs Ferdinand I were forced to grant concessions to German Protestants in order to gain their help in fighting off the Turk.

"Harvard development economist Dani Rodrik, himself of Turkish descent, pointed out Iguyun's paper in his own consistently excellent blog, observing impishly that 'you would think the [European Union] would be a bit more hospitable to Turkey's membership aspirations,' given the Ottoman Empire's crucial contribution to Europe's economic development. That seems unlikely, but it does raise an entirely different question. If the military threat from the Turks at least temporarily staunched internecine war between Catholic and Protestant, maybe the world today needs a similar external menace to reduce 'clash of civilization' tensions between Islam and the West."