Turkish President Erdoğan’s Gallipoli ‘prayer’ stirs debate

President Recep Erdoğan has stirred a heated debate in Turkey by reading an Islamic-toned, patriotic poem in a television commercial filmed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Turkish victory in the Gallipoli campaign during World War I, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

In the video, produced by Turkey’s presidency and simultaneously broadcast on several television networks late April 20, soldiers from various Ottoman provinces including Anatolia and Iraq are seen in a roll call for the Gallipoli battles that raged from April 1915 until January 1916.

Although viewers noted a soldier named Nikola, an Ottoman Christian name, most of the clip is dominated by Muslim themes, including a call to prayer in the face of the Allied fleet approaching the Gallipoli peninsula in the western Turkish province of Çanakkale.

"Have you ever heard the voice of our martyrs?” a voice says at the beginning of the video, before Erdoğan’s own voice is heard reciting “Dua” (Prayer),” a poem by Turkish nationalist poet Arif Nihat Asya.

After reading the poem, which refers to various Islamic symbols like minarets, the call to prayer, jihad and Ramadan, Erdoğan is seen placing a wreath and praying for an Ottoman soldier who fell in Gallipoli.

Modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is widely accepted as a key figure of the Turkish victory in Gallipoli, briefly appears at the end of the video concluded by the message: “A centennial epic. We remember our martyrs and veterans on the 100th anniversary of the Çanakkale Victory."