Baku, Azerbaijan, April 10
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The cancellation of election results and the holding of new elections in Istanbul is a matter of time as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the main ally of the Justice and Development Party, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party Devlet Bahceli do not rule out the cancellation of the election results in Istanbul.
While commenting on this issue, candidate for the post of head of Istanbul from the Republican People’s Party Ekrem Imamoglu said that he is ready to hold new municipal elections in Istanbul, but he does not think it would come to that.
The matter rests in the fact that the ruling party did not oppose the results of the municipal elections in Ankara, where candidate of the Republican People’s Party Mansur Yavas gained 50.93 percent of votes.
Ankara as the capital of Turkey is important, but one must not forget that cultural and economic and of course, the ideological capital of the country is Istanbul - the capital of three empires.
After candidate of Republican People’s Party Ekrem Imamoglu announced his victory in Istanbul, a campaign was launched in social networks that the ruling party lost not only Istanbul but also Palestine, Mecca and the entire Islamic world.
If the defeat of the ruling party at the municipal elections in Istanbul is the decline of political Islam for the opposition forces, then this is a matter of honor and not only this for the ruling party.
As it is known, the ruling party has the Vision 2023 plan which is rarely announced in the media.
The 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic will be marked in 2023. Moreover, the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023. President Erdogan has repeatedly voiced his intention to consider this treaty.
Earlier, President Erdogan said that Turkey’s opponents tried to present the Lausanne treaty as a victory.
“They submitted the Treaty of Sevres to us in 1920, they forced us to conclude the Lausanne treaty in 1923,” President Erdogan said.
“Some people tried to mislead us, presenting Lausanne as a victory,” the president said, adding that according to the Lausanne treaty, islands in the Aegean Sea were given to Greece. “Is this a victory? The islands were ours, our mosques are there and we are still discussing the future of the continental shelf in the Aegean Sea, the maritime and air boundaries, we are still fighting for that.”
Although there is not a single document in the Turkish archives testifying that the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023, Turkey on behalf of President Erdogan does not hide the fact of the consideration of the details of this treaty.
But taking all this into account, a number of Turkish historians say that the Lausanne treaty will expire in 2023 and Ankara will consider all the details of the treaty, including the status of islands in the Aegean Sea.
Turkey must first solve economic problems and become stronger militarily to demand to change the details of the Lausanne treaty.
All economic, energy and military projects which are being implemented by the ruling party are aimed at becoming more powerful until 2023.
Istanbul is the center of mega projects initiated by the ruling party. Before the municipal elections, the opposition spoke against the implementation of almost all important projects, including the shipping channel and the new airport in this city.
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Rufiz Hafizoglu, deputy editor-in-chief of Trend
Follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu