Conquest of Istanbul remembered

The 566th anniversary of Istanbul's conquest by Ottomans is observed today by varİous events. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a message yesterday to mark the anniversary of Istanbul's conquest by the Ottomans which made the city an indelible part of Turkey.

Erdoğan, who served as the city's mayor before his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) rose to power in the early 2000s, heaped praise on Mehmed II, the Ottoman sultan who led the conquest that ended Byzantine rule. "Faith, determination and resolve. Mehmed the Conqueror and his heroic soldiers who have been praised by our dear Prophet Muhammad, inspires us to take Turkey to its future goals in 2023, 2053, 2071," Erdoğan said, referring to the better-known nickname of the Ottoman sultan.

In a hadith, the Prophet Muhammad praised the future conqueror of Istanbul, which was a city Muslims repeatedly tried to take since the birth of Islam. Under Erdoğan, the Turkish government set up a series of ambitious goals for the development of Turkey and aim to reach them by symbolic dates like the centenary of the Republic in 2023. Erdoğan himself often refers to future symbolic dates like the 600th anniversary of Istanbul's conquest and 1,000th anniversary of the 1071 Battle of Malazgirt that cemented Turkish domination in Anatolia.