Turkey: the new monarchy of the Gulf (!)

TURKEY: THE NEW MONARCHY OF THE GULF (!)

Turkey that is about to take over the temporary presidency of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), accentuates the rhetoric of political Islam in its internal affairs and on the international stage. The official visit of the Saudi King to Turkey became further evidence.

The events of the Arab Spring have pushed Turkey to regress within the Islamic world. The Persian Gulf monarchies, currently regarded by Ankara as its closest allies, have played an important role. The international community is worried by the attempts of Turkey to incorporate in its political strategy, ideas such as moderate Islam and democracy.

From 2011, the Turkish authorities have started making plans to boost their influence in the Middle East and to become a regional leader. The essential purpose of this political strategy was to bring the Muslim Brotherhood from Tunisia to Turkey. However, the Turkish ambitions to push the Muslim Brotherhood to the centre stage in the Islamic world have been destroyed by the joint efforts of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and Turkey was left alone with her despair.

Regarding the situation in domestic politics in Turkey, everything is also very sad. Currently, the situation in the country is such that free and democratic elections are impossible, and the opposition parties are in effect deprived of the right to hold rallies and protest.

The Muslim Brotherhood, unlike Saudi Arabia, not only based its policy on a religious basis; this movement had long been supported by the West. Western countries call this strategy "moderate political Islam", "the Turkish model", but what is happening in Turkey, causes severe criticism from the Western press. The authoritarian government, violations in the field of freedom of expression, press, assembly, all this shows that the Turkish model is not working, even in Turkey. A particular important sign is the presence of financial resources coming from the Gulf countries to Turkey which have increased significantly since the 1980s.