Iran’s uprising puts Turkey on the spot

Islam Gamal Mohamed

Having waited to know who will emerge victorious from the turbulence hitting Iran since late December, the Turkish regime has finally expressed support to the mullahs ruling the Islamic Republic.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed hopes that peace would prevail in Iran, lest things should get worse in the country. It hoped that no foreign powers would interfere in what is going on in Iran.

The ministry called in a statement on Iranians to avoid violence and provocation, welcoming a speech by Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, in which he expressed support to the right of Iranians to protest, but warned against law-breaking and damaging public properties.

Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, said Iran’s stability was important to his country. He warned Iranians against what he described as the “conspiracies” concocted against their country.

Turkey, he said, was a country that protected the rights of its neighboring and friendly states as it did its own rights.

“Some states are obsessed with interfering in the affairs of other states,” Yildirim said. “Now, they want to create trouble for Iran after they destabilized some of the countries of the region.”

He added at the 6th General Congress of the ruling Justice and Development Party in the central Turkish city of Kirsehir that his country was concerned over unrest in Iran.

This is why, he added, we wait for stability to return to our neighboring state as soon as possible.

“We do not want troubles to erupt anywhere in our region,” Yildirim said, noting that some countries – he did not name – had bad intentions for the region.

This keenness on Iran’s stability strikes a discordant note with Turkey’s position on the Arab Spring.

The discrepancy in this regard uncovers the falsity of Turkey’s claim to leading the Sunni Muslim world in its struggle against the Iranian axis.

This specific position throws strong light on Turkey’s collaboration with Iran, especially after relations got better at the expense Syria where the two states imposed a settlement that only served their own interests.

Turkey hopes the “Iranian Spring” will fail and that things will remain under control in the Islamic Republic. This contradicts Turkey’s support to the uprisings that erupted in Arab states, including Egypt; Tunisia; Syria, and Libya.

Turkey’s position toward the Syrian revolution is totally different from its position toward the uprising in Iran, although public anger in both countries erupted for the same reasons.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is hostile to the aspirations of the Iranian people because he is afraid of a potential drive by the Kurds for independence.

He is also afraid that the Iranian Spring will reverberate in his own country. Protests in Iran can be a model for Turkish citizens, most of who oppose the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party and Erdogan himself.

The protests in Iran, experts say, can change the balance of power in the region, if they receive appropriate support and achieve their goals.

The protests could potentially turn into a full-fledged popular uprising, especially after one of the demonstrators set himself on fire in protest against the suppression of the Iranian regime.

The position of the Erdogan administration toward developments in Iran also betrays the Ottoman past which was full of animosity to the Iranian Shiites.

Historians accuse Iran’s Shiites of hampering the achievement of Ottoman goals by invading Sunni states. The ottomans suspended Iranian expansion in the battle of Chaldiran in 1514.

There are common interests between Iran and Turkey, on one hand, and the Muslim Brotherhood, on the other, even as the three blocs have different priorities.

This is why one should not be duped by the phony heroism demonstrated by each of them when it defends the rights of suppressed peoples.

Turkey and the Brotherhood cannot claim to be leading the Sunni world while they share interests with the country that leads the Shiite world.