Turkish Schools To Teach ‘Blue Homeland’ Doctrine

From next year, pupils in schools in Turkey will be taught the geopolitical “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which envisages Turkish influence over large parts of the Mediterranean and other seas and aims to legitimize the government’s eastern Mediterranean policy.

According to the Turkish Education Ministry’s recommendations, which were publicized by the Turkiye and Takvim newspapers, the maps and the Blue Homeland concept will be taught in secondary school geography classes.

The recommendations claim that “the value of patriotism should be instilled as well as Turkey’s justified struggle against demands that ignore its legal and geographical rights in the Sea of Islands (the Aegean Sea) and the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Adding “The importance of Cyprus for Turkey and the Turkish world should be referred to.” The recommendations also said that along with the Blue Homeland (Black Sea, Mediterranean, Aegean Sea, Sea of Marmara), the reasons why Turkey is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea should be explained.

What is the Blue Homeland Doctrine of Turkey?

The narrative of the Blue Homeland concept serves to legitimize domestically the Turkish government’s eastern Mediterranean policy, which has focused on the perceived threat that Turkey is being limited to Anatolia and its territorial waters, and therefore needs to maintain access to the Black, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean seas by projecting a high profile, according to a paper published by the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Belgrade.

The paper argues that at its core, Blue Homeland is a geopolitical concept that has been perceived and supported by the Turkish Navy, which claims through this a leading role in policy formation and implementation in the east Mediterranean Sea.

According to the paper, the post-2016 years (following the Gezi Park protests) constitute a new period in Turkey’s foreign policy. One where the Blue Homeland doctrine was increasingly reflected in its strategic positioning.

The Blue Homeland has been gaining prominence both domestically and as a component of Turkey’s foreign policy. As per the paper, published in 2021, between 2016 and the publication date the country’s foreign policy has become increasingly aggressive and securitized, with an anti-western and anti-US outlook as the central organizing principle.

It had established the defense of Turkey’s maritime sovereignty as its first objective and set three goals: to ensure it possesses the capacity and capability to protect Turkey’s interests in the surrounding seas, to strengthen Turkey’s regional maritime boundary claims in order to gain access to new energy resources, increased influence, and economic growth, and to prevent the west from confining Turkey.