Sultan Erdogan, PM Pashinyan, And Forging Diplomatic Relations With Turkey
Many readers noticed that, frequently in our articles, we attach the title of “Sultan” to the name of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Lately, we received several requests to clarify our position on the issue. The time has come to elaborate on the reasons that have propelled us to use the “Sultan” title in multiple articles, and emphasize the ramifications that the present disposition of Sultan Erdogan will have on Armenia in the near future, if the current government of PM Pashinyan decides to resume diplomatic relations with Turkey, under the pretext that Armenia has to comply with conditions spelled out in the Nov. 09, 2020 “Trilateral Agreement” signed by a reckless Prime Minister, who deliberately put his country on a collision course, and provoked a war that he knew well he cannot win.
Those who are interested in studying the “Trilateral Agreement” can access it directly, analyze it closely, and reach the conclusion that resuming diplomatic relations with Turkey was never mentioned, explicitly or implicitly, and the implementation of the clauses of the agreement do not hinge on shaping a new diplomatic reality with Turkey.
One more time PM Pashinyan is playing with fire with a myopic grasp of his oponent’s intentions, and making statements such as:“We will evaluate these gestures and respond to positive signals with positive signals,” in response to a supposedly noble gesture-“Positive Signals” or “Sustainable Peace” Sultan Erdogan has been conveying to Armenia, directly or via intermediaries, during the last few months.
In international diplomacy, well before you start a negotiation process with an oponent to achieve goal X,Y, Z... you need to understand well the person sharing the limelight with you, and the starting point for PM Pashinyan should be the following basic questions: Who is Sultan Erdogan? What are the ideas that shaped and coloured his political convictions? How far did he succeed in achieving his goals? How will the decisions of the Sultan shape the destiny of Armenia in the near future?
Sultan Erdogan was born on February 26, 1954 in a poor neighbourhood of Costantinople known as Kasimpasa. His mother’s lineage had roots in the Adjara region of Georgia, a fact that frequently infuriated him whenever he was accused in his youth, and many times during his political career by opponents of having LAZ (Georgian Sunni Muslim) origins. In an outburst of anger he once replied to a member of The Turkish parliament:“What haven’t people called me? They said I am a Georgian, and even uglier, an Armenian. But I am a Turk,” and more importantly he always highlighted to accusers who questioned his Turkish Islamic purity what his great grand-father (a Mullah) had emphasied to his descendents “God is not going to ask us to which tribe we belong. Just say, thank God we are Muslims, and let it pass.”
By the mid 1960s Turkey had a well established secular tradition emphasizing the nationalistic orientation of the young republic, while considering Islamism an obstacle that hampers the progress of Turkish society. But secularism did not enjoy any form of affinity in the Erdogan family, and the father of the Sultan enrolled him in a religious school (Imam Hatip School), where he studied the Quran, Sharia, Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya (The life of the Prophet), and the Arabic language. By the time he graduated in 1973 his classmates, impressed by the depth of his knowledge of The Quran and his oratorical skills, called him “Hoca” meaning teacher of Islam.
In his school years the Hoca/Sultan was exposed to the writings of many Turkish and Arab intellectuals (ideologues of The Muslim Brotherhood) who had condemned “secularism”- an ideology promoted by Western Democracies and their Jewish Zionist co-conspirators, as the enemy of Islam. Islam was an all encompassing religion that clearly provided to the pious Turk the Divine instructions needed to build a family, a society, and last but not least a great nation of true believers. For the true Muslim believer “Secularism” was and will remain the antithesis and nemesis of The Great Islamic Turkish Umma (Arabic for nation).
Sultan Erdogan chose political activism as a career to re-engineer Turkish society based on the fundamental precepts of Islam, and impose Allah’s will on his beloved country where too many Turks became inebriated by the allure of Western moral decadence. He needed a stratagem to distract the internal and external (Western Democracies) forces that were protecting the bastions of the secularism imposed by Ataturk on Turkish society.
For the Sultan re-engineering Turkey was a long-term goal. The journey was full of dangers that could seriously harm him, and bring his pursuit to an abrupt end. To avoid the wrath of the secularists and their allies, he had to pretend to be someone he was not. He had to show respect for democratic principles that undermined his personal values as a “pious” Muslim. His dilemma was solved by the following verse of The Quran: “Let not the believers take the disbelievers as Auliya (supporters, helpers, friends etc.) instead of the believers, and whoever does that will never be helped by Allah in any way, except if you indeed fear a danger from them. And Allah warns you against Himself (His Punishment), and to Allah is the final return.” (Sura 3:28)
The Quran sanctioned the principles of “Al Taqqiya wal Kitman”. Meaning the Sultan can deny being a devout Muslim, pretend to be an ardent supporter of democracy and secularism, dissimulate his true goals, lie when facing a danger, as long as he remains focused on imposing Allah’s will on his political enemies, until the day he is coronated as the true leader of the faithful or hugs martyrdom in the process of trying at least.
A significant portion of the Sultan’s political career centered on hijacking democracy. In other words, using democracy as a vehicle to reach the highest office of the realm, and then impose his personal likes and dislikes, masquerading as Allah’s will for Turkey, on a nation that can build a glorious future by pursuing Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turanism.
Journalist Adam Smith of The Providence Magazine, depicted with accuracy and eloquence the grandiose dreams of the Sultan by pointing out that Turkey “This Islamist NATO member—accused of tacitly supporting ISIS and other Salafi–jihadists—has long held high expectations of becoming a leading global power, and to lead the Muslim world under a new caliphate. To pursue such theocratic goals, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who famously compared democracy to a train: "you get off once you've reached your destination") has worked to consolidate power, develop an international network of extremist ideologues and teachings, fund terror, persecute his critics, religious, and ethnic minorities, undermine foreign powers, and systematically destroy the remaining vestiges of Turkey's democratic policies and practices from its former secular system.
The Sultan abandoned the train called “Democracy” in 2017. Less than a year after consolidating political power in the Office of The President of Turkey, he launched a new era of ruling Turkey by presidential decrees. Turkey under the Sultan’s reign was no longer a secular democratic republic established in 1923. It was a continuation of The Ottoman Empire that too many historians declared dead decades ago.
On February 10, 2018, during a ceremony marking the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II held at The Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, Sultan Erdogan proudly declared:“The Republic of Turkey, just like our previous states that are a continuation of one another, is also a continuation of the Ottomans...Of course, the borders have changed. Forms of government have changed... But the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same."
Sultan Erdogan continued his diatribe against “bigoted” secular Western democracies, that often referred to Abdulahamid II as “The Red Sultan”, by insisting that Abdulhamid II, who slaughtered more than 200.000 Armenians (Hamidian Massacres), was one of the “...most important, most visionary and most strategic minded" ruler that left indelible marks on the political landscape of Turkey for the last 150 years.
Sultan Erdogan concluded his speech by adding the following statement: “Some people insistently try to start this country's history from 1923. Some unrelentingly try to break us from our roots and ancient values...We take pride in our history without making discrimination."
The centenary celebrations of 2018 made it very clear that Sultan Erdogan was determined to emulate the greatness of “The Red Sultan”. If Abdulhamid believed that, the best method to solve “The Minorities Problem” within his empire was total extermination of all minorities, Sultan Erdogan was ready to annihilate the minorities such as the Kurds, currently backstabbing Turkey the way Armenians did during the reign of Abdulhamid II.
If Abdulhamid II pilfered the wealth of The Ottoman Bank by building extravagant palaces that reflected the glory of his regime, Sultan Erdogan without any qualms sent the Turkish economy on a downhill trip to complete the construction, on the outskirts of Ankara, of a “a new presidential palace complex, with at least 1,100 rooms and an official price tag of $615 million — although critics suggest both figures are probably higher.” Sultan Erdogan’s humble “shopaholic” wife Emine Erdogan is well known in many European capitals for single purchases of luxury goods ranging from $20.000 to $50.000 per purchase.
If The Red Sultan was silencing the opponents of his regime by imposing long prison sentences and building a large network of corrupt spies and minions, Sultan Erdogan adopted the same blue print in dealing with those who refused to echoe his own vain views of his own achievements. Full of adoration for Abdulhamid II, Sultan Erdogan “... crafted a novel and potent ideology made up of elements of Islamism, nationalism, unswerving loyalty to a one-man cult and state-sanctioned corruption.”
Sultan Erdogan also assigned a critical importance to Islamism and nationalism in laying the foundations of his foreign policy in The Middle East in general and The Caucasus in particular. In many countries such as Syria and Lebanon, his plan of acquiring new markets protected by a Turkish military presence, or the threat of a military intervention was very simple.
Let us review the Lebanese experience and accordingly decide how the Lebanese tragedy will be modified and adapted, by Sultan Erdogan, to destroy the social fabric of Armenia and turn it into an extension of Turkey, thus securing an unhindered control of the Caucasus by Ankara.
Almost a decade ago Turkey under the auspices of Sultan Erdogan, launched a plan to establish a strong foothold in Lebanon, by peddling the flimsy excuse that the Sunni community of Lebanon has become a vulnerable prey for the aggressive military might of Hezbollah-known by radical Sunnis as “Takfiris”, the “Blasphemous False Muslims”.
Every single residential unit on sale, in the Sunni neighbourhoods of Beirut and the Northern Lebanese City of Tripoli, was purchased by agents of the Turkish government by paying 4 to 5 times more than the regular market value. Turkomen from Syria, Turkey, Iraq, were encouraged to move to Lebanon and settle with their families for free in the houses purchased by the Turkish government. A massive influx of Turkish aid (food, medecine, clothing...) convinced the local Sunnis that the Saudis are no longer the guarantors of Sunni survival in Lebanon. The new regional bully, Sultan Erdogan, was the answer for all the evils and injustices the Sunni community of Lebanon was experiencing under the crushing fist of the Shiite hegemony in Lebanon.
Sunni clerics on the payroll of Sultan Erdogan, went from one district to another, preaching to Lebanes Sunni believers that they are “The Grandchildren of the Ottomans”.
Gaslighted by professional radical demagogues, the Lebanese grandchildren of the Ottomans declared in 2015 that they can no longer tolerate events organized by the Armenian community of Lebanon to commemorate the Genocide of 1915 “allegedly” perpetrated by The Ottoman Turks. For the Neo-Ottomans of Lebanon, Armenians, those insideous cunning refugees who settled in Lebanon after betraying the Ottoman Empire, deserved the punishment meted back in 1915, and if they continue to tarnish the image of the Turkish regime, the new granchildren of The Ottomans were ready to exterminate the Armenians of Boudj Hammoud, thus finishing once and for all what their grandparents started under the reign of Abdulhamid II, and failed to write the final chapter under the regime of The Ittihadist in 1915.
Turkey’s Sultan Erdogan was not simply satisfied by intimidating the Armenian community of Lebanon. Now that he had managed to provide the solid evidence that the Lebanese society has a critical component of long lost assimilated Turks, decided to revive the Turkish language locally, to strengthen the bonds between the Lebanese Sunnis and their Turkish protectors.
In February 2021, Major General Imad Osman, director-general of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, informed all the officers under his command that Turkish online language classes would be conducted online in Lebanon in cooperation with the Turkish embassy in Beirut. The logic used was very simple. How can you serve and protect a growing community of Turkomen if you can’t understand their language? The Turk living in Lebanon did not have any responsibility to learn Arabic, but the Police Force protecting him was obligated to learn Turkish.
If we juxtapose what happened in Lebanon with the ongoing secret negotiations between Armenia and Sultan Erdogan to re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries, the following scenario emerges:
Ambassadors will be exchanged between Yerevan and Ankara.The borders between the two countries will be opened. An influx of subsidized goods produced in Turkey will swamp the Armenian markets. For example, if the Armenian farmer produces currently a kilo of apple for $0.60 cents, the Turkish government will sudsidize the Turkish farmer and introduce the same apple into the Armenian market for $0.30 cents. Unable to compete, and condemned to a dismal pauperism, the Armenian farmer will be forced to sell his land to The Turks. Where the bullets failed on the multiple fronts of Sardarabad, Turkish economic warfare will succeed in grabbing acre after acre of the Armenian ancestral land.
Every
single dwelling in Yerevan will be grabbed by The Turks at prices 4
to 5 times higher than the market value. Turks will be instructed by
Ankara to settle for free in Yerevan. Every commercial store will be
purchased by Turkish investors to sell goods and services at
competitive prices that Armenians cannot match. Armenian oligarchs
controlling the construction industry in Armenia, will experience an
unprecedented
growth in their wealth. But the wealth will come at the expense of destroying beyond recognition the social fabric and identity of Armenia. I hope PM Pashinyan and his cronies will seriously contemplate the following question and try to find an answer for it: How can we co-exist with our enemy if we don’t exist as a nation with a distinct identity?
A serious warning to the political decision makers of Armenia. Sultan Erdogan is currently investing a nefarious effort to negotiate with The Taliban’s leadership a contract that will award to Turkey the management of Kabul’s International Airport. Turkey will rely on clandestine methods to ship Afghan opium to labs in Turkey, convert it to heroin, and export it to Europe and other destinations.
Sultan Erdogan’s ambitious plan to control cocaine, opium, and heroine trade routes became obvious with a major bust conducted by Brazilian law enforcement agencies in early August 2021. Brazilian Police boarded a private Jet with tail number TC-GVA and discovered 24 suitcases stuffed with 1,3 tons of cocaine. The jet was the property of a Turkish company with ties that could be easily traced “... to the upper echelon of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
PM Pashinyan resuming diplomatic relations with Turkey means that, in less than a decade, Armenia will experience an epidemic of drug addiction, and the zombies that will be walking the streets of Yerevan with fried brains, won’t be able to defend Armenia’s borders, because Armenia’s Political leadership is ready and willing to sell its soul to the devil in the name of an abstract “Prosperity” that it cannot define nor understand its ramifications.
PM Pashinyan, one more time, you are entertaining the delusion that all the economic woes of Armenia will be solved once you solidify your partnership with Sultan Erdogan “The Reformist”, and forge a diplomatic relationship with Turkey. He is not a reformist. He is a “Bona Fide” Islamist who strongly believes that you are nothing but a “Gavour”. And to every “Gavour” he recites the following verse: “Leave to me those that deny this revelation. We will lead them step by step to their ruin, in ways beyond their knowledge”. Quran 68:44, N.J. Dawood
The Sultan will lead you and Armenia, step by step, down the path of a ruinous destiny without firing a single bullet.
Notes & References:
Sultan Erdogan was a great admirer of a Pan-Turkish intellectual named Ziya Gokalp. He recited in a public forum the following poem written by Gokalp: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers...." Under article 312/2 of the Turkish penal code his recitation was regarded as an incitement to violence and religious or racial hatred. He was given a ten-month prison sentence of which he served four months, from 24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999. Gokalp was a denialist of the Armenian Genocide. He firmly believed that "there was no Armenian massacres, there was a Turkish-Armenian arrangement. They stabbed us in the back, we stabbed them back".
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Sultan Erdogan was strongly influenced by one the biggest ideologues of the “Muslim Brotherhood” Sayyid Qutb. Readers interested in exploring the views of Qutb and how he Erdogan developed a hatred for “secularism” can consult the following article written by Paul Berman, titled: “The Philosopher of Islamic Terror”
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/23GURU.html
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An interesting article on the struggle of The Turkish nation to understand and make sense of its past, and pursue the mirage of “Racial Purity” written by By Halil M. Karaveli titled: “Turkey is Yet to Conquer its History”
https://isdp.eu/publication/turkey-yet-conquer-history/
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As a true Islamist, Sultan Erdogan never missed an opportunity, during the last decade to condemn Israel for all the retaliatory measures it adopted to contain Hamas. During an election campaign in 2014 Erdogan stated: "(Israelis) have no conscience, no honour, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism." For more details read: “Turkish Prime Minister says Israel is 'more barbaric than Hitler”
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Sultan Erdogan honestly believes that Jerusalem belongs to the Neo-Ottomans, to the Turkish nation he is ruling. Consult the following article:
'Jerusalem Is Ours': Behind Erdogan's Remarkable Claim
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For more details about Sultan Erdogan’s new palace read:
Turkey's President And His 1,100-Room 'White Palace'
Written by Peter Kenyon
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For an indepth understanding of corruption and the gradual demise of the Turkish economy, under the watchful eyes of Sultan Erdogan, see:
“How corruption destroys a democracy: The case of Turkey under Erdogan”
Written by Abdülhamit Bilici
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To appreciate the steep price Turkey is paying to support the expensive taste of the Sultan’s wife, read:
Turkey's President Erdogan's 'shopaholic' wife laid bare as 2m citizens earn £3 a day
Written by Paul Thompson
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