Has AKP sacrificed Turkey's Ottoman heritage?
Shoddy conditions at the new Ottoman Archives building in Istanbul stand to weaken the conservative credentials of the Justice and Development Party.
If one judges a political group by how it treats historical treasures, the reported conditions at the new Ottoman Archives undermine the conservative credentials of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
On the surface, the new archives complex in the Saadabad neighborhood of Istanbul’s Kagithane district appears to be a major improvement over the older building in Sultanahmet. Housing 95 million historical documents and nearly 400,000 registers at an on-site underground repository, the 12-building complex boasts a large reading room, conference halls and an outdoor garden overlooking the Kagithane brook flowing into the Golden Horn. It is a serene and peaceful-looking place where any researcher would love to work.
