Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a warning, while addressing a session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), against the revival of colonial-era ambitions in the Middle East, condemning what he called efforts to impose a “new Sykes-Picot order” on the region.

“We will not permit the creation of a new Sykes-Picot arrangement in our region — one where borders are redrawn in blood,” Erdogan declared at the 51st Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Istanbul on Saturday. 

His statement invoked one of the most controversial diplomatic episodes of the 20th century — the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret pact between Britain and France during World War I that partitioned the Ottoman Empire’s Arab territories into imperial spheres of influence.

While the agreement was never fully realised in its original form, its consequences — artificial borders, externally imposed governance, and the sowing of sectarian division — still reverberate throughout the modern Middle East. 

Erdogan’s invocation of the century-old accord was more than symbolic; it was a warning against present-day attempts to reshape the region through war and power politics.

Warning amid regional chaos

Erdogan’s speech came against the backdrop of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where more than 55,000 Palestinians — nearly two-thirds of them women and children — have been killed in Israeli strikes, with 128,000 more wounded. 

“Two million of our brothers and sisters in Gaza have been clinging to life under inhumane conditions for 21 months,” he told the gathered foreign ministers.

The Turkish leader extended his condemnation beyond Gaza, denouncing Israeli military operations in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran as “acts of banditry”. 

He described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as the foremost threat to regional peace, calling for the Islamic world to move beyond symbolic gestures and adopt a united strategic stance against continued aggression.

“We must demonstrate stronger solidarity — not only to end the atrocities in Gaza but also to confront Israel’s reckless actions in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran,” Erdogan said. 

“In an era of fragile politics and realignments, unity among Islamic nations is not a choice — it is a necessity.”

The Sykes-Picot legacy

To understand President Erdogan’s warning, one must revisit the history he referenced. 

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, signed in 1916 by British diplomat Mark Sykes and his French counterpart Francois Georges-Picot, divided the Ottoman Empire into zones of British and French control — without regard for the ethnic, tribal, and religious realities of the people living there.

Historian and rector of the National Defense University Prof Dr Erhan Afyoncu tells TRT World that the pact was not drawn in the spirit of peace or justice, but to serve the imperial ambitions of Europe’s great powers.

“Their eyes were always on the Middle East,” Afyoncu says. “With the Ottoman Empire’s forced withdrawal after World War I, the region has known nothing but war, instability, and sorrow.”

Afyoncu recounts how Britain, already in de facto control of Egypt, sought to expand its reach across the Levant and Mesopotamia, while France was eyeing Great Syria, including modern-day Lebanon. 

The agreement gave France control over Syria, Lebanon, Adana, and Mersin, while Britain claimed Iraq and Palestine, reserving additional zones of influence along a north-south line stretching from Accra to Kirkuk.

“It was a map drawn in sand,” says Afyoncu, quoting British historian James Barr, “and like the colonial borders carved into Africa, it ignored the human geography of the region.”

The pact became even more convoluted when Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Sazanov was brought into the arrangement through the Sazonov–Sykes–Picot extension, claiming parts of northeastern Anatolia-Erzurum, Trabzon, Van, and Bitlis, thus ensuring that three imperial powers would divide the remnants of the Ottoman realm.

Afyoncu emphasises that the seeds of future violence were planted here: “Over a hundred years have passed, yet the tears have not stopped. The consequences of these imperial decisions are still with us — especially in Palestine, where the failure to stop Israeli oppression has led to the massacre of thousands.”

A call against colonial repetition

The US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Representative for Syria, Tom Barrack, recently echoed this historical critique, condemning the very logic that animated Sykes-Picot.

“The West, a hundred years ago, imposed maps, mandates, artificial borders, and foreign rule,” Barrack said in Ankara. “Sykes-Picot partitioned Syria — and the broader region — not for peace, but for imperial profit. That mistake cost generations dearly. We will not repeat it.”

Barrack reaffirmed Washington’s opposition to any modern-day attempt to divide Syria or redraw Middle Eastern borders. 

Instead, he said, the US seeks to build partnerships with Türkiye, Gulf nations, and Europe to pursue peace and stability collaboratively.

A region still haunted

Despite the passage of more than a century, the Middle East remains entrapped by the consequences of that fateful secret agreement. 

The lines drawn by British and French diplomats across desert maps now trace the contours of conflict zones and fractured identities. The once-Ottoman lands that were divided without consent remain politically unstable and socially scarred.

In invoking the Sykes-Picot Agreement, President Erdogan is not merely making a historical reference — he is issuing a geopolitical warning: that without unity and resistance against external manipulation, the Islamic world risks reliving the past.

In the shadow of Gaza’s devastation and under the strain of renewed regional friction, Erdogan’s call for solidarity resonates as both a plea and a challenge — urging Muslim nations to recognise that the battle for political sovereignty and humanitarian justice in the Middle East remains unfinished, and that its outcome may yet shape the next century.