turks are sad about the fall of the ottoman empire, similar but restoring it with a nationalist/islamist way will not work, and turkey will lose its good relationships with europe if erdogan continues to use migrants as negotiation chips.
but there is still a much smarter way, turks can make their istanbul a world respected city, they have to do it the smart way, here my suggestion how:
1. make istanbul a neutral city abandoning turkish nationalism
2. make istanbul a religiously neutral city, stopping the 99% muslim dominance (istanbul had majority christian population during ottoman age.
3.make istanbul a neutral bicontinental city. meaning it has to controll its borders to both sides europe and the middle east.
4. istanbul has also to get a a neutral names, constantinople, and byzantum are also allowed official names of the city.
5. istanbul becomes a merchant and soft power respected in europe and in the middle east, it needs to have a strict corruption free burocracy as istanbul would have privileged relations with europe istanbul would be allowed to appoint visas for trusted merchants, companies and tourists to europe and maybe also into the middle east. (if the middle east ever decides to become a peaceful and prosperous region.
6. istanbul as a newly created city state would be vastly influential and powerful, it also would need a monarch controlling the financial system like during ottoman age.
there are more steps to this in reality but it also is comming automatically istanbul is distinguishing itself from anatolian turkish cities. trying to be more neutral and less middle eastern
regards
How would a city be neutral from the whole country?
This means that Istanbul would be a separate nation which means that Turks would never support this.
Istanbul is the most valuable city of the Turkish nation right now and they would never allow it being independent from the other country.
