Muslim Brotherhood leaders craving Turkish citizenship

Mahmud al-Batakoshi

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood are coming together for a reason. Both sides believe in the importance of serving their interests at all costs and regardless of any principles.

A delegation of Muslim Brotherhood figures in addition to Egyptian lawyer Ayman Nour met Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu recently to express fears against a potential détente between Cairo and Ankara.

Treachery

The Muslim Brotherhood leaders meeting the Turkish interior minister requested Turkish citizenship for themselves. Meanwhile, they did not defend any of the cases of the junior Muslim Brotherhood members living in Turkey and facing uncertain prospects in the country.

Over 20,000 junior Muslim Brotherhood members experience tough conditions in Turkey. The leadership of the Islamist movement rarely offers support to these members.

The same members entreat Turkish authorities not to hand them over to Egyptian authorities.

Omar Magdi, a junior member of the Brotherhood who lives in Turkey, revealed that three of his fellow movement members had committed suicide recently against the background of the lack of support from the movement.

The Brotherhood had previously given up support to other members. Some of these members were sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood members meeting the Turkish interior minister met Yasin Aktay, an advisor of Erdoğan, earlier.

The meeting focused on the demands the members of the delegation would put on the table for the interior minister.

Begging citizenship

The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are afraid that any potential rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey would lead to their repatriation to Egypt.

Turkey seeks to mend fences with Egypt in its pursuit for a share of the natural gas cake in the East Mediterranean region.

Ankara is also under obligation to improve its relations with Cairo which is tightening the noose around it in Libya.