Turks welcome ‘Trojan horse’ Boris Johnson as new PM

As if a Trojan horse was set upon the doorsteps of number 10 Downing Street, out pops the grandson of the Turkish Ottomans, Boris Johnson – though a delight to many Turks, surprisingly unbeknownst to others – to become the UK’s latest Prime Minister.

Turkey celebrated Johnson’s arrival as UK Prime Minister on Wednesday, with politicians and media proclaiming that the ‘Ottoman grandson’ could strengthen ties between the two countries on Europe’s fringes.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan congratulated Johnson, saying that ties between Turkey and the United Kingdom were set to improve. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also congratulated him, sharing a video of Turkish reporters asking Johnson about his roots in Cankiri during a 2016 visit to Ankara.

Boris Johnson inherited his Turkish lineage from his paternal great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, who was most noted for his pen as a journalist, and his political affiliation towards the West.

Ali Kemal, the Ottoman Empire’s last interior minister, sought to dislodge his country from the East and attach it to the West, much as Johnson’s Brexit move seeks to separate the UK from the East and direct it towards the West, which is America.

Like Johnson, his great-grandfather was a journalist who went into government, though the elder’s final move as a statesman proved ill-fated, as Kemal was captured and lynched by nationalists fighting to establish the Turkish state.

Meanwhile, over the last few days, a considerable number of people in the Middle East have been puzzled by the fact that Boris Johnson had a favorable opinion of the region and Muslims, considering his evident racism and unfavorable view of Islam and Muslims.

It was just three years ago that Boris won first prize in a British magazine competition which asked readers to compose limericks about Erdogan “as filthy and insulting as possible”. He later said, however, that the Turkish leader had not brought up the verse when they met.

Turkey, which is seeking to become more Western and a member of the European Union, met a tough stumbling block back in 2016, when Boris Johnson wrote to then-Prime Minister David Cameron, calling for the government to veto Turkish EU accession.

Turkey’s EU accession talks are now stalled, while Johnson has barely three months to meet an October 31 deadline to negotiate Britain’s exit from the bloc.

And this is where the surprise arises, though how it unfolds is still uncertain: is it Turkey’s blond Trojan horse in London, or is a Boris bombshell on its way to Ankara, as it desperately attempts to gain closer ties to the West amid shaky footing with the United States over an arms row?

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