How Powerful is Turkey? What will happen to Turkey after 2023?

Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey Flag 

 At present Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is the only Muslim leader in the World, that can firmly stand against the United States of America and Israel. Except for Turkey, all other Muslim countries are Puppet of America. Erdogan openly criticizes Trump’s Middle Eastern Plan calling it an attempt of Israel to capture Palestinians land. Turkey is taking part in many proxy wars in The Middle East.

Turkish president openly criticizes Trump and its policies, but we never heard a single word from Trump against Turkey, why is that? Is Superpower afraid of Turkey? Is Turkey that powerful? Let’s look at it.

Geographical Location:

Most power weapon of Turkey is its geographical location. Turkey is located between Asia and Europe and it acts as a gateway between them. For that reason, both America and Russia want Turkey to be on its side. Turkey knows how to take benefits of its location.

On the other side, the geographical location of turkey also causes problems for it. Turkey wants to be a part of the European Union. Citizen of all the countries that are part of the European Union can travel across Europe without Visa. Every year flood of people from Asia, reach Turkey in a desire to travel to Europe. They are too many that it becomes difficult for the turkey to manage them. For this reason, the European Union is not allowing Turkey to be a part of it.

Economy:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Turkey is almost $800 billion in 2019, which ranks it at 17^th position in the World. According to GDP per capita, Turkey ranks 45^th in the world. The tourism sector of Turkey plays the most important in strengthening its economy. Every year almost 7 million people visit Turkey for tourism. In recent years, Turkey also made great development in its industrial sector. Turkey is Self-sufficient agriculture country. It does import agriculture-related products at all. Turkey is not an oil-producing country, so it has to import oil.

Military:

Despite not being a Nuclear state, Turkey’s military is one of the strongest Armies in the World. By quantity, Turkey’s Military holds 8^th position in the world. While the Indian Army is at 4^th position, Pakistan is at 13^th and China is at 3^rd position. Being a member of NATO, no country will directly damage their Army, if they do, they had to fight with NATO. Turkey holds the second-largest military after America in NATO.

Total Personnel:                        1,408,075

Active Personnel:                      335,000

Reserve Personnel:                    380,000

Tank Strength:                           3,200

Armed Fighting Vehicles:         9,500

Air Strength:                              1,067

Fighter Air Craft:                       207

Naval strength                            196

Submarines                                 12

Sources:

Global Firepower

CIA

Wikipedia      

 Turkey also manufactures F-16 with assistance from America. Turkey also bought the S-400 missile system from Russia to strengthen its defence system.

Political:

Turkey plays an important political role in the Middle East. When Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and establish its embassy there, Erdogan called a meeting of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation). After the meeting, OIC declares Jerusalem as the Capital of Palestine.

Erdogan condemns the violent policies of Bashar Ul Assad the President of Syria. Turkish Military Agency train defector of Syrian Army on its land, which emerged as Free Syrian Army. Russia is backing Bashar al Assad. Turkey allowed many Syrian Refugees to enter its land, but now Turkey wants them to return. For that Turkey wants to create a safe zone in Syria for refugees to return.

Problems:

The biggest problem for Turkey is its minority Kurds. Kurds are the largest stateless ethnic group in the World. After world war 1, Mustafa Kamal Pasha who was the founder of Modern Turkey decided not to make a special state for Kurds. So Kurdish majority area was divided among Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. 

Kurds Occupied area

The area in red shown in the figure is Kurdish Area which Kurds called “Great Kurdistan”. Majority of Kurds are in the eastern part of Turkey. Kurds from the very first day are demanding and fighting for their separate state, Turkey is dealing them with iron hands. Almost $300 to 400 billion are spent by Turkey to cope up with Kurds. Europe condemns Turkey’s way of dealing with Kurds, which is also the reason the European Union is reluctant to include Turkey in it.

Turkey after 2023:

In 1924, after World war 1 a peace treaty was signed between the Ottoman empire and war Victorious countries, which is known as the treaty of Lausanne. Treaty of Lausanne defied the borders of modern-day Turkey, it ended Ottoman caliphate and 40 news countries came into existence after the treaty of Lausanne.

Main points of Treat of Lausanne.

·        All personal belonging of Caliph was captured and he was sent on exile

•         Caliphate system put to an end
•        Turkey was declared a Secular state
•         Put a ban on Islam and Khilafat
•         Put a ban on oil drilling of Turkey
•         Bosporus a natural Strait in Turkey is declared as international

Terms of the treaty of Lausanne is for 100 years and will expire in 2023. After 2023 Turkey will enter a new era by drilling its own oil and imposing taxes on ships passing through Bosporus.

Role in the end of times:

Turkey is always of great importance throughout history, especially for Muslims. Our Prophet PBUH predicted the conquest of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) which is the largest city of Turkey by Muslims.

Prophet Muhammad predicted a conquest of Constantinople in the end of times. There are many Hadiths which mentions end time, great battle and the conquest of Constantinople. Actually, The prophet PBUH mentions the conquest of Constantinople will be peaceful.

 ‘They will conquer Constantinople with Tasbih and Takbir and will acquire such spoils of war as has never been seen before.’ [Ibn Majah]  

  

The conquest by Sultan Mehmed (al Fatih) was not peaceful at all and involves a lot of bloodsheds, which means there would be another conquest of Constantinople. According to Sheikh Jamir, that conquest will occur after Prophet Isa (a.s) will kill Dajjal.