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Neo-Ottomanism: the political economy of contemporary Turkey
Turkish communist leader KEMAL OKUYAN explains the background to the despatch of Turkish troops to Libya and Turkey’s new claims to mineral resources in the eastern Mediterranean
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) shakes hands with Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of Libya’s Government of National Accord

AFTER failure in Syria, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is busy developing a second version of his neo-Ottoman project, which he first brought onto the political agenda in the second half of the early 2000s. 

There is no doubt that the neo-Ottoman policy of territorial and economic expansionism is a product of the politics and ideology of Erdogan and his party. 

The Republic of Turkey, founded following a bourgeois revolution under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal 100 years ago, was never truly accepted by the Islamist forces associated with Erdogan.

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