NAT da Polis

The political aims of the Turkish president’s Vatican visit. The alliance with Putin and purchase of weapons from Russia while remaining in NATO. The Sultan wants to take full advantage of Turkey's geopolitical position in the migrant flow to Europe; as a basis for a possible attack on Iran. But everything according to his personal ambition.

The Ecumenical Patriarch has accepted the invitation to participate as a guest of honor at the annual conference of the Centesismus Annus foundation, which will take place between May 24 and 26. It will be the eighth meeting with Pope Francis.

The march, which ended yesterday in Istanbul with a million participants, set out from Ankara with only a few activists 25 days ago. The accession of the Kurdish party and the presence of some gray wolves. But the opposition party must promote a sense of democracy.

The reading transmitted by state TV. Groups tied to Bulent Arinc, former vice president, and the brotherhood of the Naxbantiya, to which Erdogan belongs, want to reopen the basilica as a mosque.

The current Turkish President has favoured a new, mostly Anatolian middle class through neo-liberal policies at the expense of Kemalist statism. in doing so, he has allowed its members to express their religiosity more openly, but has himself also become more authoritarian.

The changes to the Constitution, through a popular referendum, fertile ground to claim and exercise power, in an authoritarian and personal context, like a new Kemal Ataturk.

The President will pray together with members of his party and the religious leaders in Istanbul. The event falls two days before the referendum, to garner the Muslim vote. Transformation of the ancient Christian basilica into a museum rejected. Erdogan: Kemalism is dead.

New pro-Erdogan demonstrations in Istanbul and Ankara. The weak attempt to overthrow the regime was not supported by Army Chiefs. Increased arrests and the possibility of introduction of the death penalty. Turkish democracy threatened by Kemalist secularism and Islamic fundamentalism.

The recognition of the Catholic Church as a true Church will be discussed in the next two days. So far, the meeting has agreed on the Orthodox Church’s mission in the world, fasting, impediments to marriage, and Churches’ declarations of autonomy. New national bishops’ conferences will include bishops from various rites and nations.

The leaders of the Churches of Antioch, Russia, Georgia and Bulgaria are not present. They decided not to come a week ago, despite agreeing to the gathering and its agenda. The Orthodox Church must urgently meet the challenges of the contemporary world. Synodality must be a permanent feature of the Church. Pope Francis sent his greetings and prayers.

The Bundestag vote allows that German authorities of that time knew of the genocidal plans and did nothing to stop it. Historians tell us that the solution of the elimination of Armenians, Greeks and other minorities responded to the geopolitical demands of Western powers. For Angela Merkel, who was absent from the vote on the Armenian Genocide the "single fact" should not affect alliance between Ankara and Berlin.

Prayer in front of the basilica, now a museum, led by a Saudi imam from Mecca. An attempt to collect petition with millions of signatures to force the government to re-open it as a mosque. The celebrations of the conquest of Constantinople began in the 1950s with Adnan Menderes, who was deposed in the 1960s and hanged. Erdogan restored the festival in memory of the conquest to realize his neo-Ottoman dream.