The treachery of Ottoman and murder by law
Murder and treachery is a feature that accompanied the history of the Ottoman Empire since it was found as authority. Suleiman the Magnificent killed two of his sons of his own, Mustafa and Bayezid, for doubting them. He also killed his infant grandson (son of Mustafa) and his grandsons (the sons of Bayezid). Before burying his father, Sultan Mehmed III killed 19 brothers and buried them the next day with his father. When he settled down, Mehmed II issued an explicit and unequivocal law authorizing the murder of brothers, saying: “If one of my sons takes power, he has the right to kill his brothers for the sake of the public interest. This was the regulation of my parents and grandparents, and it will be mine.” There are many examples of this, as all Ottoman sultans assassinated their brothers, cousins or even uncles for fear of losing power. The killings have evolved to the genocide committed by descendants of the Ottomans against the Kurd and Armenians.
In the near yesterday, history repeated itself, with many political and military figures in Turkey killed for fear of undermining the Ottoman Empire. Adnan Mendres, who was prime minister between 1950 and 1960, was murdered by hanging in 1961, when the military suspected him and saw he was trying to implement true democracy in Turkey. Turgut Ozal, who was a liberal president, was also killed in 1993, when the military knew that the man was heading to end the war start negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Now, we can easily notice and see what Erdogan did several years ago when he fabricated the issue of the military coup and accused the Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulan (Erdogan’s godfather) of being behind the coup attempt, so that Erdogan started carrying out horrific assassinations against everyone who opposed him, or anyone who doubts his loyalty to him. As a result, massacres were committed against hundreds of soldiers and civilians alike.
A short period later, the economic and political situation in Turkey began to deteriorate, creating dissatisfaction among the population on the one hand, and relations between the Erdoğan regime and the West, particularly the US, strained. The US criticism to Erdoğan regime became frequent, so that Erdogan resorted to the law of his ancestor, Mehmed III, and killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, to get the satisfaction of the US and that of the former US President Donald Trump. After that, he escalated his crimes and military offensive against the Kurdish people after he confirmed that Trump got his gift, where Erdogan was in need to achieve victory to maintain his electoral popularity.
Today, once again, the economic and living conditions in Turkey have deteriorated, and after the failure of ISIS attack on al-Sina’a prison in Hasakah city, northeast Syria, supported by Turkey, the resentment showed by many countries regarding what happened, and after the fingers pointed to Turkish President Erdogan, the latter again resorted to the Ottoman sultans law and presented his relative and blood partner, the Turkmen Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, the new leader of ISIS, as a gift to US President Joe Biden, who is not a true friend of the Turkish President and his regime as he is known.
The policy of killing, liquidating adversaries and trade-offs is not new to the Turkish statehood. During the Syrian crisis and over its 10 years, the Erdogan regime liquidated and traded many of the opposing military leaders such as Hussein Harmoush, the Syrian army defector, in addition to many opponents and political figures. It worth mentioning that presenting al-Baghdadi and al-Qurayshi as gifts was not about cooperating in the fight against terrorism but about improving its image in the West, and the question that comes to mind is who will be the third gift?
