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2025-07-23 The Grand Turk
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'My Nation Has Won': Erdogan Calls for Pan-Ottoman Solidarity
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov
[REGNUM] Never before has Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt as confident as he does today.
At various points during his premiership and presidency, he was threatened by a US- and EU-sponsored “velvet revolution,” a military coup supported by Fethullah Gülen, and risked losing parliamentary and presidential elections to the heirs of Ataturk’s party.
And throughout his twenty-year rule, he fought separatists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), both in Turkey and in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
The "velvet revolutions" in Gezi Park failed, and Donald Trump stopped funding their breeding ground, USAID (an organization recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation). Erdogan reined in the military, jailed the Gulenists, and Gulen himself passed away last October. The AKP and Erdogan were able to win the parliamentary and presidential elections by hook or by crook (although they lost the municipal elections).
Of the unresolved issues, two remained: opposition leader and Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and the PKK.
In terms of danger, Imamoglu probably stood much higher. After all, if any means can be used against the PKK, then elections in a still democratic country cannot be cancelled.
But to one degree or another, an antidote was found in both cases.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party has weakened significantly in recent years. Following Turkey's military operations in northern Iraq and Syria against the PKK and YPG, the change of power in Damascus to the pro-Turkish Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the establishment of close relations with Baghdad, the Kurdish militants have weakened significantly.
In October 2023 and 2024, they reminded everyone of their presence by carrying out terrorist attacks at the Interior Ministry building and at the headquarters of the TUSAŞ aerospace company near Ankara. But the party's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, realized the futility of nearly half a century of violent resistance. And in May 2025, he called on his supporters to lay down their arms.
A new stage in this process was the beginning of the real disarmament of the PKK. On July 11, in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the province of Sulaymaniyah, the first group of 30 PKK militants surrendered their weapons. The disarmament procedure, according to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak, will take place “without cameras” and should be completed by September.
According to the agreement between Ankara and the PKK, the leadership of the Kurdish movement (about 250 people) will not have the right to live in the areas of Iraq and Syria bordering Turkey, but they can leave for third countries.
The Turkish President could not help but take advantage of the opportunity to celebrate his latest victory: "Turkey has won, my nation has won. Each of our 86 million citizens - Turks, Kurds and Arabs - has won." This address is not accidental.
Erdogan does not want to give the impression that he has broken the back of Kurdish separatism. He is separating the concepts of "terrorist" and "Kurd" to avoid giving rise to new insurgent movements in the future and to gain support from the 30 million-strong Kurdish diaspora in his fight for the next elections.
This is not the first time that Erdogan has resorted to pan-Turkish (Ottoman) solidarity.
Immediately after Ocalan's decision to disband the PKK, he said that the battles of Manzikert (Malazgirt) against the Byzantines (1071) and Çaldiran (1514) were "a common victory for the Turks, Kurds and Arabs."
In allied Azerbaijan they tactfully kept silent, but were clearly not happy to hear from Erdogan that he was proud of the blow to the Safavid Empire at the hands of the Kurds.
The most curious thing about the process of reconciliation with the Kurds is that the trigger here is the AKP's ally in the coalition, the leader of the nationalist MHP, Devlet Bahçeli. It was he who, even before the start of the dialogue with Öcalan, in October, suggested that he speak in the Turkish parliament and disband his group. And a couple of months ago, he came up with something even more sensational. "The president should have two vice presidents - one Kurd, the other Alevi," he said at a closed meeting with deputies.
The second piece of news that marks Erdogan’s victory in domestic politics came in the same days as the beginning of the PKK’s disarmament. On July 16, Ekrem Imamoglu was sentenced to more than a year and a half in prison for “publicly insulting a public servant.”
Imamoglu did indeed question the integrity of prosecutor Akin Gürlek, but it is clear that this is just a pretext. The verdict is a new stage in the case of the mayor of Istanbul, who was arrested in March and is the president’s main rival for power, whether in the snap elections or in the planned ones in 2028.
The timing of the verdict was very opportune. The protests in Turkey have already died down, the major international players, mainly European ones, have either stopped talking about them or are talking in hushed tones. Erdogan probably expects that in a year and eight months, Imamoglu will be completely forgotten, and he will be able to hold early elections and win them.
If Erdogan fails to get into “best shape,” then he can wait another three years and, if necessary, promote a successor during this time — for example, the young but experienced Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Imamoglu’s release will not be an obstacle — new grounds for new criminal cases can be found at any time.
The process of dismantling the PKK looks more promising and irreversible. But the arrest of Imamoglu does not eliminate the threat from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). So the fight against it is still ahead and it is still dangerous, even without a strong leader at the helm.
Nevertheless, in the short term of a year or two, the Turkish president can be calm about his rear and concentrate on foreign policy. He is already doing this, his confidence is growing every day, and there are enough reasons for it.
Trump takes Erdogan seriously, listens to his opinion on Middle East affairs, sometimes risking his friendship with Israel. The latest escalation in Syria has largely been stopped thanks to the coordination of the State Department and Ankara.
The European Union is keeping its offer of Turkey's participation in European defense and the military-industrial complex on the table. In June, Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar and Italy's Leonardo formed a joint venture, LBA Systems, to produce UAVs. Recognizing Europe's growing dependence, Erdogan has demanded that Turkey's European integration be accelerated.
Ankara has its finger on the pulse of the Ukrainian conflict and is already getting involved in the negotiations on Iran. On July 23, a new round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place in Istanbul, and in two days the heads of the foreign ministries of the "European three" and Iran will gather there to discuss the Iranian nuclear program.
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Posted by badanov 2025-07-23 00:00||
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