Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said on Sunday that the Turkish society should praise the Ottoman Empire more often.
"We often praise the Ottoman Empire, right? We praise it, we should do that. Result: A monumental empire collapsed. How did it collapse? We conquered İstanbul, we ruled over the world, we transformed the Mediterranean into an Ottoman lake. How come this monumental empire collapsed?" Kılıçdaroglu said in a meeting in İstanbul.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has for a long time been attempting to revitalise Ottomanism (neo-Ottomanism), opposing the secular and republican values of the Turkey Republic founded in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The AKP has also instrumentalized the neo-Ottomanism concept in its foreign policy.
The main opposition leader had stated that there was no problem of secularity in Turkey in 2010, besides the leadership of the Party remained indifferent to or even supported the Islamization of the country by the Islamist AKP government.
