“We say at every opportunity we have that Syria, Iraq and other
places in the geography [map] in our hearts are no different from our
own homeland. We are struggling so that a foreign flag will not be waved
anywhere where adhan [Islamic call to prayer in mosques] is recited.”
Apparently Erdogan means at the very least the recapture of all the
lands once held by the Ottoman Empire. That’s not just Greece, as in the
article title below. That’s also Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia,
Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and
more. How seriously this can be taken is anybody’s guess, but it
shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Erdogan is already moving against
the Kurds in Syria, explicitly calling the action a “jihad” and invoking
the Ottoman era repeatedly.
