Alarabiya.net has posted an article titled “Turkey’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood “ reporting that since the June 30 revolution in Egypt, Turkey has become the regional hub for the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization. The article begins:
Since the June 30 revolution in Egypt, Turkey has become the regional hub for the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization. Istanbul has played host to many meetings planning what steps are to be taken against the military-backed Egyptian government after the July 3 ouster of President Mohammad Mursi.
These Ankara sponsored events were part of Turkey’s attempt to outlaw ‘the foreign legitimacy’ of the new Egyptian leadership, a move made in addition to its previous role as a political boot camp after the January 25 revolution.
Turkey’s defense of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the tears of Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the Egyptian security forces attempted to storm the sit-in of Rabaa al-Adawiya, proved Erdogan’s ties with the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization and their mutual interest in restoring ‘the era of Islamic rule,’ seen by the Brotherhood as the basis for protecting ‘the Islamic nation.’
After the end of the Ataturk party’s rule, and the start of the democratic party’s era, the Brotherhood started collaborating with Necmettin Erbakan, who in 1969 founded Milli Görü?, the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. In 1996, Erbakan attempted to facilitate the rise of a new Islamic power, the Eight Islamic countries group, made up of Libya, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Also, the Brotherhood fielded a strong presence at the 2006 celebration of 533 years’ occupying Constantinople.
Although Erdogan attempted to showcase the image of a civilized Islam, based on the Sufi teachings of Shamsuddin al-Tabrizi and Jalaluddin Rumi, the Turkish Islamists were fascinated by the Egyptian experience to an extent that they started translating the letters Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and the teachings of 20th century Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb, among others.
Even the Justice and Development party was, to a certain extent, considered a Muslim Brotherhood faction, giving business opportunities to Brotherhood businessmen for example. Erdogan was an open follower of the master of Islamists in Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan.
In that era, many Brotherhood leaders moved to Turkey which launched ‘historic reconciliations’ between the Syrian and Egyptian regimes and the Brotherhood. This was done in order to create a favorable environment for forming Brotherhood branches, without much success before the Arab Spring.
Read the rest here.
The GMBDW reported earlier this month that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (aka Kahled Meshaal) had paid what was described as a “surprise visit” to Ankara in order to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Although the report is valuable, the author appears unaware of a 2011 report from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) which discussed the growing role of Turkey in the Global Muslim Brotherhood, including its support of Hamas. The abstract of that report states:
There is strong evidence for Turkish governmental involvement in the Gaza flotilla incident, with Turkish government support channeled through the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood.
With respect to the Global Muslim Brotherhood, report’s second conclusion states:
The Gaza flotilla incident brought into sharp focus an even more significant long- term development: the growing relationship between the Erdogan government and the Global Muslim Brotherhood, which has given rise to some of the most notorious Islamist terrorist groups – from al-Qaeda to Hamas. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood, while the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip acted as the main axis for this activity.
(Disclosure: The JCPA report was authored by the GMBDW editor.)