Turkish foreign policy: Disasters and dangers threaten Europe

Mahmoud Mohammadi and Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar

The Paris-based Center for Middle East Studies (CEMO) on Friday, November 8, organized a conference entitled “Turkey’s Foreign Policy and Its Disastrous Consequences for Europe” in Paris.

The seminar was attended by CEMO Chairman Dr. Abdelrehim Ali, CEMO Executive Director Dr. Ahmed Youssef, and writers Pierre Berthelot, Roland Lombardi, Joachim Veliocas and Garen Shnorhokian.

The conference was also attended by a number of experts and those interested in Middle Eastern and European affairs, as well as a number of Arab and French journalists.

Erdogan’s recruitment

At the outset of the conference, CEMO Chairman Dr. Abdelreahim Ali attributed the relationship between the Brotherhood and Ankara to the early 1960s, when the Turkish Brotherhood leader and spiritual father Necmettin Erbakan published a manifesto titled “Milli Gorus” (National View) regarding the establishment of a Brotherhood branch in Turkey. Erbakan’s manifesto was influenced by the Egyptian Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb.

Ali added that immediately after the manifesto, Erbakan established a movement of the same name in Germany, which changed its name in 1995 to the Islamic Association of Milli Gorus (IGMG). Then the Milli Gorus movement spread throughout Europe, where it now has many branches in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria and the United Kingdom. In all of these countries, the Milli Gorus movement has control of hundreds of mosques.

In 1970, the Brotherhood-controlled World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) organized its first youth camp in Northern Cyprus, Ali said. Kamal al-Helbawy, a WAMY official at the time and a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the camp’s supervisors in Cyprus. He wrote a confidential report about the camp in which he said that he saw two young Turks with a sense of leadership; these two Turkish men were Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gül.

Erdogan’s split with Erbakan

Ali said that since Erbakan founded the Milli Gorus movement, he began to create the right platform in Turkey to enable political Islamism. In 1970, he founded the National Order Party (MNP), which was soon dissolved in 1971. Then Erbakan began to establish his second party in 1972, known as the National Salvation Party (MSP), which was also dissolved in 1980, when the Turkish army seized control of the country.

But Erbakan did not despair. In 1983, he returned again to a new party called the Welfare Party (RF), which was banned by Turkey’s Constitutional Court for violating constitutional provisions separating religion and state. Other RP members founded the Virtue Party (FP) in late 1997, which was also banned in 2001 by the Turkish Constitutional Court.

When Erbakan, Erdogan and Gül were allowed to return to politics again, there was a clear split between Erbakan’s old generation and the younger generation in the movement, such as Erdogan and Gül, so Erbakan became the leader of the Felicity Party (SP) in 2001. Meanwhile, Erdogan and Gül founded their Justice and Development Party (AK) in the same year.

Ali added that Erbakan died in 2011, but it is possible to say that the Islamist thought written by Erbakan in his 1960s manifesto is the basis of the AKP, which Erdogan later founded and chaired, as it holds the same ideas and ideology as the Milli Gorus Islamist movement that was mainly established in Europe but expanded and became active in the United States and Australia. Both Erdogan and Gül emerged from the womb of the Milli Gorus, but they separated from them due to internal conflicts with Erbakan that were focused on the material gains of Milli Gorus in Europe, where their income from the movement amounted to €1 million a month from Germany only.

Planned invasion of Europe

Abdelrehim Ali revealed a cable from the US Embassy in Ankara in 2004 that described members of the Milli Gorus movement as arrogant and that they expose Islam to confrontation with democracy and treat the world as a conspirator against the Islamic religion. Ali noted that in the same cable, the embassy pointed out that the AKP’s Milli Gorush branch is a minority that has no influence without the party, but they remain influential at the regional level within Turkey. As for the AKP’s internal circle, US intelligence has identified that Gül is close to Milli Gorus with his ideas and ideology, while Erdogan moves further to the center.

Ali stressed that one of Erdogan’s top priorities was to get Turkey into the European Union. Erdogan said in front of more than 3 million Turks in 2004 that Turkey is already within Europe. Estimates at that time put the number of Turks residing in Europe at 7-10 million, when Erdogan had already started pushing Turkey into Europe. In conjunction with that, the commander-in-chief made the decision not to intervene later in Turkish politics, and he repeated it in clear and explicit words in 2002, when he stressed, “There will be no military coups in Turkey again. If that is what Europe wants in order for us to join the European Union was right. The military assured everyone that we would not interfere again in Turkish politics in exchange for Turkey’s entry into the EU. Otherwise, the Islamists will dominate power, but Europe and America seem to have had another vision.”

Islamization of Turkish institutions

Ali revealed that Erdogan took off the mask of moderation when he found that no European leader wanted to be convinced, and he quickly turned 180 degrees on his centrist principles, which he continued to promote among European decision-making institutions, and revealed his reality as a member of the international Brotherhood organization through the Turkish branch Milli Gorus.

Ali added that Erdogan made a major change of course inside and outside Turkey in 2007, when the Justice and Development Party became the ruling party, Erdogan became prime minister, and his colleague Abdullah Gül became president of Turkey. He sent new instructions and directives to the Turkish embassies to start the process of Islamization of Turkish institutions, and to a lesser extent, members of Milli Gorus obtained semi-government jobs and owned companies in the West, such as Turkish Airlines. The embassies were also directed to deal with and coordinate with Milli Gorus in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and France. Some ambassadors did not accept these new directives and submitted their resignations; others sought the right of political asylum in the countries where they represented their country.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs, known as Diyanet, has been the main bastion against political Islamism inside Turkey. But since 2007, due to the massive influx of AKP and Milli Gorus members within Diyanet, its compass index has almost certainly changed. Even Friday sermons in mosques controlled by Diyanet and mosques controlled by Milli Gorus have become the same, with the same style and even the same ideas. Diyanet is no longer the bulwark against political Islamism, but has become the main pillar to control the mosques in Turkey and the Turks living in diaspora as well. The only problem was that Western governments had no solution to what had happened and they continued to deal with Diyanet but not with Milli Gorus; however, the result is the same.

Collapse of the caliphate dream

Abdelrehim Ali said that when the Brotherhood came to power in Egypt following the events of January 2011, many MPs of the Egyptian Brotherhood and government officials traveled to Turkey for training. The so-called Arab Spring gave Erdogan hope that Turkey would play an important role in the Middle East. He began to turn Istanbul into the center of the international Brotherhood organization. Several international groups organized events and conventions in Istanbul, including the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the International Association of Muslim Scholars, and the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe.

Those meetings held in Istanbul gave the international Brotherhood organization wide freedom of expression to discuss what they wanted without embarrassment, Ali said, adding that while meetings in Europe were always monitored by the governments there, nothing pressured them in Turkey or forced them to use pragmatic language as they had to in Europe.

Ali added that Erdogan participated in the plan to seize Egypt as part of the Brotherhood’s “grand caliphate” project. In this context, Turkish businessmen began to flock to Egypt hoping for a bright future, but their ambitions and hopes fell to the winds a year later with the June 30 revolution, when the Egyptian army sided with the demands of the masses and the rule of the Brotherhood was terminated after only one year.

Syrian crisis

According to Ali, Turkey entered into the Syrian crisis in an attempt to find a foothold after losing hope in Egypt. The Syrian Brotherhood has a headquarters in Istanbul, and members of the Syrian Brotherhood began to arrange Erdogan’s entry into Syria. Some of the group’s leaders became leaders of terrorist organizations in Hama, Aleppo and Homs, and they arranged to receive weapons they bought from the Balkans.

“These weapons in Libya also entered from Turkey. Erdogan not only did that, but he also turned Turkey into a safe haven for the Egyptian Brotherhood members who fled Egypt after the collapse of their rule. Despite the presence of their headquarters in London, the bulk of them went to Istanbul, where they were given the means to create many media outlets and social media accounts to use in the ongoing assault on the Egyptian regime, which turned into a thorn in the back of Erdogan’s dreams to dominate the region,” Ali said

“Turkey has also become a meeting place for the Brotherhood’s international organizations to coordinate among themselves and plan for the invasion of Europe,” he added.

Russia prevents penetration of extremist ideas and Erdogan only has Qatar’s support

Roland Lombardi, a Middle East scholar, said that the Brotherhood and Salafi movements have been banned in Russia since 1970, while Sufi movements have prevailed in Russia since then.

Lombardi stressed that the recent period saw several conflicts, pointing out that the Arab revolutions added some of these conflicts to recent history. He confirmed that Turkey supported these Arab revolutions to spread chaos, and Syria has shown some concern about these Turkish moves towards the Middle East. Turkey was seeking to overthrow the regime and put a Brotherhood element in Syria.

Turkey has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria as well as armed movements and terrorist groups during the past period, Lombardi said.

Erdogan is no longer supported except by Qatar, although there are also discussions in Turkey and Iran, but both are weaker than expected. Turkish influence in the Arab and Islamic world is very limited compared to the influence shown by the Egyptian, UAE and Saudi axis, which has manifested as a model in the Arab world.

Lombardi stressed that Russia supported the Syrian president because they did not find any other solution, and they pushed the Kurds to join the Syrian army recently, so Erdogan moved quickly to prevent communication and understanding between the Kurds and the Syrian government through Russia, which is what recently happened in northern Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was refusing to give the Kurds self-determination despite their defeat of ISIS, but Lombardi believes that with America’s exit from the region and the Kurds going to the Russians, we will see greater cooperation between the Kurds and the Syrian army, which leads us to question the fate of the Kurdistan region. So the Kurds are now in a weak position, only able obey what Moscow says, while Russian diplomats have managed to bring all the individuals to the same table, which is good for them.

The so-called Syrian opposition has not given any organized image to itself, eventually emerging in the form of terrorist militias seeking to establish a “caliphate state”, meaning that the collapse of Assad’s regime would allow these militants to come to power.

Therefore, the Russians refused to give up Assad, because the existence of an Islamist regime will cause their Caucasus countries to think about repeating the experiment.

European countries have also tried to find an alternative to President Assad, but there are no prominent frameworks for a solution in the Syrian crisis credible to European countries.

Turkey supports extremist religious schools and imams spying on their compatriots in France

Meanwhile, Joachim Veliocas, an expert on Islamist groups, said at the CEMO conference in Paris that there are 800 mosques supported by Turkey in France, out of more than 2,000 mosques. They organized a committee to coordinate between Turkish Muslims in France, and they follow the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, who is a Turkish national.

Erdogan founded 250 mosques in Europe, all approaching the thinking of the Brotherhood and all allies with the group French Muslims, an association founded by the organization. There are also 150 Turkish imams sent from Turkey to frame Islamic thought in France to be commensurate with them, which is more than what Morocco and Algeria, for example, contribute to their Muslims here.

Likewise, there are Turkish professors who teach Turkish, but they are indirectly making a big influence in favor of Ankara. They have also been accused by prosecutors in Germany of spying on Turks in Berlin, whether professors or imams, and this is happening in Paris as well.

Veliocas said that Turkey supports institutions to run many schools, and each year the number is greatly increased in France. There are about 100 schools in the country, all of which are successful.

These schools offer complete thought and religious instruction, and they progress silently, as no one discusses these projects being worked on by the Turkish state.

Turkey denies Armenian massacre and its threats to Europe must be confronted

Meanwhile, Pierre Berthelot, also an expert Islamist groups, said at the conference that there are many countries that recognize the massacres of Armenians, including Egypt, Germany and France. The annihilation of Armenians was a harsh Turkish political decision, in which they decided to exterminate Armenians and various minorities, with as many as 1.5 million Armenians having been killed.

However, Erdogan is still trying to denied this and said he would not recognize the recent US decision on the Armenians. So it must be remembered that Turkey is repeating the same thing in northern Syria towards the Kurds, who had long participated in this massacre with the Turkish government, but now the situation is turned against them.

Erdogan wants to eliminate the Kurds because he thought he could enter northern Syria after the US withdrawal, and there are thousands of displaced from these northern regions of Syria.

It must be asked why Turkey does not recognize this genocide. The answer is that the new regime in Turkey, after the establishment of the secular state, was responsible for this genocide and participated in it, so they were to give compensation to the Armenian families who lost loved ones in the genocide, but Turkey does not want to give any compensation to these families.

Geopolitically, Armenia is a very small country with no influence, which makes the Turks refuse to acknowledge what has happened and insist on keeping the situation as it is.

However, the Turks did not stop there but are trying to falsify the facts and say that it was the Armenians who tried to attack the Turks.

There are a million Syrian refugees in Germany and many in France, and they have made a big change in the nature of parties in Germany. Nevertheless, Turkey continues to threaten European countries that it will release Syrian refugees towards the European border, in an attempt to get good results in negotiations, but this must be confronted.

Nusra terrorists would have ruled Syria without Russian intervention

Garen Shnorhokian, another expert on Islamist groups, told CEMO that the Nusra terrorists would have reached the seat of governance and the Libyan experience would have been seen again in Syria had the Russians not interfered.

The Russians were loyal to their ally in power, but Paris was not. There is the issue of Qatari gas pipelines, which France was to operate through Total in Syria, but this did not happen. The Americans are looking for Syrian oil, but they are showing hostility to Iran, and Shnorhokian expects French support for them.