“Turkey will get back its fair share in the Mediterranean, Aegean and the Black Sea,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in August. It was a bold statement in an increasingly heated dispute over maritime boundaries.
What does Mr Erdogan see as fair? The answer lies in Turkey's latest foreign policy doctrine “Mavi Vatan”, or “Blue Homeland”, an irredentist vision that aims to resuscitate an almost-Ottoman level of maritime influence.
In the mid-16th century, the Ottoman Empire held sway over the entire Mediterranean Sea, mainly thanks to a pair of bold seafaring brothers. Born on what is now the Greek island of Lesbos, Oruc and his younger brother Khizr emerged as internationally renowned corsairs for hire.
The brothers gained the backing of one of the world’s most powerful leaders, Yavuz Sultan Selim, and built a capable Ottoman navy. The empire soon extended its reach to Algeria, and after Khizr, by then known as Barbarossa (“red beard”), defeated a Venetian-Spanish alliance off the Greek coast in 1538, the Ottomans controlled all the islands in the Aegean.
Most historians view the brothers as pirates and slave traders, yet Turkish schoolchildren are taught the brave exploits of Oruc Reis (Turkish for “chief”) and Barbarossa Hayrettin (“best of the faith”). Now, Mr Erdogan uses seismic research vessels named after them to signal his country’s desire to defend its maritime rights and challenge regional powers.
Devised by retired naval officer Cem Gürdeniz, it views the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean and the Black Sea – to be Turkey’s Blue Homeland. It first made headlines a year ago when Mr Erdogan gave a speech in front of a map laying out Turkish control over more than 460,000 square kilometres in those three seas.
Two weeks ago, the Turkish presidency marked the anniversary of that 1538 victory over Christian powers with a video re-enactment of Hayrettin battling Crusaders. “The blood of my ancestors flows through my veins,” the President’s communications head, Fahrettin Altun, said in a tweet releasing the video. “We die and take lives for the blue homeland.”
Erdogan uses seismic research vessels to challenge regional powers
The appearance of the Turkish survey vessel Oruc Reis and its accompanying warships in waters off the Greek island of Kastellorizo last month spurred Athens to place its armed forces on high alert, putting the fellow Nato members on the verge of war. Only when the Oruc Reis returned to port in Antalya a few weeks later were Turkey and Greece able to begin preliminary talks. The same day, however, another ship, the Barbaros Hayrettin Pasha, was sent to drill in waters claimed by Cyprus, where it is expected to remain until the second week of November.
Over the past two years, Turkey has sent half a dozen research vessels accompanied by warships to drill in waters claimed by Cyprus. Last year, it signed a maritime borders deal with Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord that vastly expands its Mediterranean claims, enveloping all of the waters around the Greek island of Crete.
Yet this maritime assertiveness is less about natural gas and potential energy revenues than it might appear. For one thing, most analysts are now convinced that any natural gas recovered from the eastern Mediterranean will be unlikely, by the time it reaches the market, to find buyers in either Europe or Asia.
In line with Blue Homeland, Turkey has in recent years sharply increased its naval power. This includes domestically produced ships and submarines and a light aircraft carrier due next year. It has flexed this renewed maritime might repeatedly in drills at sea, with another planned for later this month.
But the flexing is not only at sea. The naval build-up is part of a massive expansion of Turkey’s arms industry that has instilled greater military assertiveness. Turkey has a troop presence or is backing proxy forces in as many as seven Arab states – Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and possibly Yemen – and has begun using foreigners to fight its wars.
Thanks to Turkey’s sizable footprint in northern Syria, Mr Erdogan is able to dispatch thousands of Syrian rebels to fight in Libya and in the latest Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict for little pay. This avoids the potential political disaster of Turkish troops returning from some distant conflict in body bags, which would be a particularly bitter pill during an acute economic crisis.
Such practices, however, draw regional ire. Last month, Egypt called on allies in the Arab League to join forces to counter Turkish aggressions in the region, particularly in Syria. Saudi Arabia has been boycotting Turkish goods for more than a year, and recent reports suggest that Oman, Bahrain and others might soon join that effort.
What about foes further afield? A key element of Blue Homeland is a worldview that blames Turkey’s troubles on Western powers and positions the US and Europe as rivals, in spite of their formal military alliances with Ankara. But the US is neck-deep in a presidential election season while its leader struggles to beat covid-19 on multiple levels. And though Nato is hoping to broker Turkey-Greece talks, the EU has done little more than repeatedly denounce Turkish aggressions and warn of sanctions. At a summit early this month, EU leaders kicked the sanctions can down the road yet again, to a December meeting.
The clock is ticking. On the sidelines of the latest session of the UN General Assembly in New York, the main actors in Libya inched toward a peace deal. As things stand now, any resolution to that conflict is likely to leave the GNA in control of Tripoli, which would encourage Turkey to fulfil the ambitions of its maritime borders deal and extend drilling further into the Mediterranean.
The Oruc Reis left port and headed into open waters last week. Days later, Turkish news outlets reported that its next drilling destination would be Crete.
David Lepeska is a veteran journalist who has been covering Turkey for the past decade
Expert input
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About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
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Dust storm
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Why your domicile status is important
Your UK residence status is assessed using the statutory residence test. While your residence status – ie where you live - is assessed every year, your domicile status is assessed over your lifetime.
Your domicile of origin generally comes from your parents and if your parents were not married, then it is decided by your father. Your domicile is generally the country your father considered his permanent home when you were born.
UK residents who have their permanent home ("domicile") outside the UK may not have to pay UK tax on foreign income. For example, they do not pay tax on foreign income or gains if they are less than £2,000 in the tax year and do not transfer that gain to a UK bank account.
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The specs: 2019 GMC Yukon Denali
Price, base: Dh306,500
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Power: 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 621Nm @ 4,100rpm
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
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UAE v Ireland
1st ODI, UAE win by 6 wickets
2nd ODI, January 12
3rd ODI, January 14
4th ODI, January 16
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Ticket prices
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
Results
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The years Ramadan fell in May
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The%20specs
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2. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 8,945 (-1)
3. Roger Federer (SUI) 6,190
4. Daniil Medvedev (RUS) 5,705
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12. Fabio Fognini (ITA) 2,290
13. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 2,180 (-2)
14. Diego Schwartzman (ARG) 2,125 ( 1)
15. Denis Shapovalov (CAN) 2,050 ( 13)
16. Stan Wawrinka (SUI) 2,000
17. Karen Khachanov (RUS) 1,840 (-9)
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19. John Isner (USA) 1,770 (-2)
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Simran
Director Hansal Mehta
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Soham Shah, Esha Tiwari Pandey
Three stars
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