During the address, he evoked the Ottoman Empire, arguing that Ankara's interests coincide, at least emotionally, with those of the Golden Porte.
By way of example, he asked: "Is it possible to separate Rize from Batumi? The mention of Batumi, Georgia's second-largest city, received scant attention from most of the world. But in Georgia it was cause for alarm about what, exactly, was meant by "boundaries of the heart. Turkey's ambassador to Tbilisi was forced to clarify that Georgians "misunderstood" Erdogan's comments. Batumi now has a population of about , and is the center of the Autonomous Republic of Ajara, in the country's southwestern corner.
Ajara has not been part of Turkey since the Ottomans ceded it to the Russian Empire in But over the past decade and a half, Turkish investments have poured into the region, and today Batumi's center and the Black Sea shore have been remade by rows of luxury hotels and casinos, largely built with Turkish money. While the government does not release figures on the levels of Turkish investment in Ajara, it represents roughly percent of the total foreign investment in the region, a former regional government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A section of the city's historic center, once an Armenian quarter, is now dominated by Turkish restaurants, bars, and teahouses. Dozens of "Thai massage" parlors, fronts for prostitution, cater to mostly male Turkish visitors. At the same time that its commercial presence has grown, Turkey also has sought to increase its political influence in its former territory.
Erdogan has increasingly weighed in on Ajara's affairs, supporting the construction of a new mosque in Batumi and asking the Georgian government to close down the casinos there. Georgians also look with a wary eye to Turkey's growing embrace of its Ottoman heritage and the rise in popularity of irredentist maps showing Turkey with borders expanded into the former Ottoman Empire, usually including Ajara. All of this is feeding a growing sense of mistrust of Turkey in Batumi.
