Military expert Karen Vrtanesyan addressed a topic touched on at the event on Armenia-Turkey relations on Saturday: perceptions of pan-Turkism in political science circles.
"In this matter, I agree with Kiro Manoyan that it is not Turkey's sizeist aggressive policy that stems from pan-Turkism, but pan-Turkism stems from Turkey's aggressive sizeist policy.
Pan-Turkism is a tool. More precisely, only one of the tools.
Look... When it is necessary to influence the Turkic-speaking population of the post-Soviet territory, Iran and Iraq, the Turks use pan-Turkist and partly pan-Turanist ideas. When you have to work with Sunnis (not only Turkish speakers), they immediately remember the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate, the Sultan.
In general, when working with Muslims, they promote pan-Islamic ideas, at the same time presenting themselves to Europe and the USA as supporters of moderate Islam (which, however, did not prevent Erdogan from supporting extremist groups operating in Syria).
And with the Turks who migrated from Turkey to Europe, Erdogan works with not only Sunni but also conservative agendas (they are a traditional family).
Exploiting the ideas of conservatism, as well as anti-Westernism and Eurasianism, the Turks also work with Russia through charlatans like Dugin. Turkey also works in Africa with the ideas of anti-Westernism (with the packaging of anti-colonialism).
By the way, when Erdogan had just come to power and was busy crushing the army, he presented himself as a supporter of democracy in order to get European support. Why am I listing all this? It is a fact that pan-Turkism is only one of Turkey's tools and is definitely not the core of its policy. If necessary, Erdogan will become a communist to keep the power.
How at one point Kemal became an Armenian-Haya Bolshevik...
In short, what I am saying is as follows. Today's policy of Turkey is much, much, much broader and multidimensional than mere pan-Turkism."
