Boris Johnson’s ascent to power celebrated in Turkish ancestral village

A village in central Turkey where Boris Johnson traces his ancestry to is abuzz with excitement and pride over the news that a man they see as one of their own has become the new Prime Minister of the UK.

Residents of the mainly farming village of Kalfat, in Cankiri province, 62 miles north of the Turkish capital Ankara, gathered at its main assembly place on Tuesday to celebrate after Mr Johnson won a Conservative Party leadership contest triggered by the resignation of Theresa May, according to town administrator, Bayram Tavukcu.

Mr Johnson took office as Prime Minister on Wednesday.

“We were honoured that someone who has Ottoman genes, who comes from these lands, has become the Prime Minister of a prodigious country,” said Adem Karaagac, the former administrator of the village of 1,300.

Mr Johnson’s paternal great-great-grandfather, Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi, was born there in 1813 and the house he lived in is still standing.

The family members were known as the “Sarioglangiller” which roughly translate as “of the family of the blond boy”, Mr Karaagac said, though it was not known if Mr Johnson inherited his blond hair from his Turkish ancestry.

Mr Johnson is usually associated with the British upper middle class because of his family’s wealth and his education at the exclusive schools Eton and Oxford.

During a Conservative Party leadership debate in June, he defended himself against accusations of Islamophobia.

“When my Muslim great-grandfather came to this country in fear of his life in 1912, he did so because he knew it was a place that was a beacon of generosity and openness and a willingness to welcome people from around the world,” Mr Johnson said.

“But he would have been very proud and I think it would be a tribute to this country.”

Mr Johnson explored his Turkish roots in a 2008 episode of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?

When he visited Turkey as foreign minister in 2016, Mr Johnson told journalists that his family was from Kalfat.

At least six families currently residing at the village are distantly related to Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi, Mr Karaagac said.

Boris’ father, Stanley Johnson, visited Kalfat about 10 years ago.

“An Englishman with Turkish ancestry has become the Prime Minister,” said Mr Karatekin, whose grandmother, Fidan Karatekin, was Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi’s cousin.

Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi’s son, Mr Johnson’s great-grandfather, was the Ottoman political journalist Ali Kemal who later served as interior minister.

Considered pro-British and a “traitor”, he was killed by a mob in 1922 during Turkey’s war of independence.

Mr Kemal’s son, Osman Wilfred, Mr Johnson’s grandfather, was raised by his maternal grandmother, Margaret Johnson, in Britain after Mr Kemal’s Swiss-British wife died and he returned to Turkey.

When Mr Johnson visited Turkey in 2016, he was given a warm welcome despite basing his Brexit campaign on the possibility that millions of Turks could enter Britain if Turkey joined the European Union and despite the fact that he had composed an offensive poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr Erdogan was among the first leaders to congratulate Mr Johnson this week and expressed hope the Turkish-British ties would flourish under Johnson’s government.

Asked about Mr Johnson’s comments on Turkey during the Brexit campaign, Mr Kalfat’s former mayor Mustafa Bal said: “He had to say such things in the political arena, for political gains.”

He took a trip to Istanbul to investigate Mr Kemal’s career as a journalist, which led to his murder.

Mr Johnson told BBC journalists that “it must have been very, very tough for my grandfather.

“Maybe it was just too ghastly for him,” to know that his father was killed.