Questioning the Turkish rule of Constantinople

On 26 December, Donald Trump's special advisor on governance and strategy, Steve Bannon posted a photograph. He published the photo in the US media himself holding a T-shirt that says "Free Constantinople", stating that he raises the issue of sovereignty of Constantinople.

On the same exact day, the former Pentagon official, specializing in the Middle East and executive of the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, in an article in the Middle East Forum, speaks out against Erdogan's extreme rhetoric, which covets... Jerusalem. In fact, he does not hesitate to speak about the current regime in Constantinople! Running through Turkish atrocities, genocides, and ethnic cleansings against the Greek and Armenian elements in Constantinople and Anatolia, Michael Rubin concludes: “As Erdoğan seeks to raise questions of sovereignty in Jerusalem, he sets a precedent that every freedom-seeking country should seize to question Turkey’s stewardship of Istanbul and to study openly the city’s status and Turkey’s sovereignty.”

He went on to state that this year, Erdogan’s regime desecrated the Byzantine Church of the Savior in Chora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, by converting it into a mosque. Rubin proposes recognizing Constantinople as an “international city” and creating independent diplomatic entities by the US and Europe in the region, similar to how they treat Jerusalem or Hong Kong. The Turks are naturally a little numb. And although they always present Western statements against Turkey's policy to confirm in their own public opinion the conspiracy of foreigners against their country, they do not know how to handle this specific matter because it goes beyond them. It is the point of the crime that the murderer avoids passing. The issue was only raised in the pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak.