Turkey is in Europe now?
It's True that Turks are not much like the Germans or the Dutch but they are like the Greeks, the Spanish and the Hungarians.
The camels and the belly dancers are Tourist attractions. Not to be confused with how Turks live.
I am Spanish and I take offence at being compared to a Turk.
Turkey is a Muslim country that is completely placed in Asia with forced marriage and honour killings. There have been recent talks of bringing back the death penalty[]. Erdogan is the true face of the country despite the whitewashing that had been happening in the recent decades.
[]https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-leaders-agree-dea...
And no, Turkey has no death penalty. Politicians may say that they would re-introduce it when they speak to their extremist voters and they had the political power for a decade to re-introduce but they never did. Do you know why? Because it's an extremely unpopular among the Turks.
I think you need a reality check.
Turkey is geographically partly in Europe. Istanbul sits on the historical border between Europe and Asia, and there is a chuck of land west of Istanbul that is Turkish. In fact, there are parts of Turkey on the European mainland that are farther west than much of Ukraine or Moldova.
Islam is an important part of the culture of many European countries - Spain in particular has significant historical Muslim influence, especially in your architecture. Several majority-Muslim countries are firmly in Europe - Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, North Macedonia. There are significant Muslim minorities in a few other countries - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro, Georgia. Even in Western Europe, there are significant Muslim minorities in many of the old colonial empires - France, Belgium, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK.
Not to mention, Turkey is still a secular country, even if Erdogan seems poised to turn it towards fundamentalism unfortunately.
The importance of the Hagia Sophia being in Turkey is to remind everyone that that land is indeed part of Europe, and has deep cultural ties to other parts of Europe, even if it was later conquered by the Turks. Anyone claiming that Istanbul is not part of Europe has to also claim that Constantinople was not a part of Europe. Not to mention, the Turks borrowed a great deal of culture from the Byzantines whose land they conquered. It's not like they burned down their cities and killed all the people - the Ottoman Empire was to a great extent built around the legacy of the Byzantine (Roman) empire. Even ethnically, most Turks today are much closer to the Greeks and Romans living in Byzantium than to the original Turkish conquerors (who were of Mongol descent), at least in the western parts of the country.
The Hagia Sophia can also act as a nice symbol of this: it is largely identical to the church that emperor ~Julian~ Justinian commissioned (the last Roman emperor to ever hold Rome, though only briefly), but it has been repurposed as a mosque, with two minarets added and several parts of the church re-painted for Islamic sensibilities. An Islamic church built on the structure of the old Roman/Greek one.
As for Spain, the situation is similar: when the medieval Europeans invaded Spain and (re-)conquered it, they then borrowed quite a bit from the culture that the Moors left behind there, as is plainly visible in Spanish architecture of the time and later, even up to the present. Of course, the Moors themselves had been influenced by the Roman & Spanish culture that they found when they originally conquered the peninsula themselves.
Edit: small correction - Justinian conquered Rome and had the Hagia Sophia built, not Julian.
>Turkey has a very significant population(over 10 Million people) on its officially European lands),
Because of forced population transfers in the 20th century. European Turkey is no more European than the Falklands are Argentine.
>The Ottoman Empire has had its significant chunk in Eastern Europe
Yes, a loathed, parasitic, alien occupation, which was overthrown at the earliest opportunity.
> Do I have to mention that the roots of many European cultures are in Turkey. Have you heard of Hagia Sofia for example?
Are you insane? The Hagia Sofia was built by Greeks centuries before the Turks arrived off the steppe.
>they are like the Greeks, the Spanish and the Hungarians.
The Greeks Spanish and Hungarians would likely regard this comparison as insulting.
Lebanon is more European than Turkey is.
>Are you insane? The Hagia Sofia was built by Greeks centuries before the Turks arrived off the steppe.
Notice how the ancient Greek stuff is in Turkey now. Unlike the British, Turks did not move it. That's why I say the ancient European history is in Turkey, that's why Turkey is a European country.
Apart for the dominant religion, Everything about Turkey is European. Oh, and the dominant European religion has deep roots in Turkey and I'm not talking just about Hagia Sophia.
You should take a long vacation in Turkey. Huge enlightenment awaits you.
Certainly not for people with a clearname online presence, as you will land in a Turkish jail. Huge enlightenment awaits you there.
It's not Europe, as much as I wish it was
Then we can see if you have a point. There's no use to disagree by just saying something different and give no reasoning.
And the "They invaded Iraq and Syria" statement is so ridiculous that I don't see point in arguing over it. If it's not clear, Google the topic and look closely at the dates of the military activities of UK/France/USA in these countries. You should also Google for George Bush and Tony Blair. Check out the British sentiment for Tony Blair's dealings with Bush. Look closely, why the British leftist are still bitter with Tony Blair's affair with George Bush? Look for videos of "Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf".
So have other NATO countries, so, if anything, I would say this makes them MORE European, not less.
In bed with hard right wing? Welcome to a lot of Europe.
Suppressing minorities that aren’t white? Again. Welcome to Europe.
Failing democratic law? Welcome to multiple European countries.
You just gave the best endorsement for Turkey to be European. Unless the real truth is simply “not white” (to you).
Because the ancient Greek cartographers thought they were clearly separated, and the convention just stuck. Of course its easier for us to see it differently with satellite imagery.