Reports: Erdogan not ready to abandon Turkey’s terrorist Brotherhood
Recent media reports have confirmed that the treatment of senior figures enjoyed by the recently visited Muslim Brotherhood leader Oussama Jamal and his entourage indicates that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not ready to abandon the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group, despite his government’s efforts to restore relations with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt amid Turkey’s diplomatic isolation and domestic economic woes.
According to a report by the investigative newspaper “Nordic Monitor”, Oussama Jamal, Secretary General of the Council of Islamic Organizations in the United States, led a delegation of the Muslim Brotherhood from the United States and Canada to visit Turkey, and met with Erdogan and a number of government officials, pointing out that the delegation was hosted on May 25, 2022, in the luxurious palace built by Erdogan in one of the rare open spaces left in Ankara amid great protest and criticism.
Photos of the closed meeting show Jamal seated at Erdogan’s right hand, opposite Vice President Fuat Oktay, another Brotherhood member, and Efkan Ala, who runs foreign operations on behalf of the ruling Justice and Development Party and a former interior minister, as well as the special presidential envoy to Libya, Emrullah İşler, who holds views sympathetic to ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The newspaper confirms that ISIS members were also present at the meeting.
Later, Ali Erbaş, head of the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), received Ouasama Jamal and his delegation and traveled to Konya, where they were received by local officials, the report said.
In his remarks, Erbaş asked the delegation to hold their meetings at the $110 million, Turkish-built religious complex in Lanham, Maryland, in 2016, where the Diyanet Organization runs the center, which acts as an arm of the Erdogan government to export extremism and political Islam abroad. Erbaş asked the delegation to be more vocal and effective in the United States and Canada, claiming to fight hostility towards Islam.
According to the Nordic Monitor, the site, officially called the Diyanet Center, hosts members of the Brotherhood terrorist group. It said Oussama Jamal and Erbaş agreed on how to use the Diyanet Center, saying they have already held a number of events there. “The Diyanet center has become a place for us to conduct our activities and meet with our leadership”, he said, adding that the assistance provided to them reflects the Turkish leadership’s approach.
Erdogan met Osama Gamal several times during a visit to the United States. The Brotherhood figure is on the VIP list for event invitations organized by the Turkish Embassy and Consulates in the United States.
The visit of Oussama Jamal and his Brotherhood delegation comes at a time when Erdogan is taking steps to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Israel. Reports that his government has been clamping down on Brotherhood activities in Turkey appear to be more tactical than a strategic reorganization in order to gain goodwill in Cairo, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi.
The Nordic Monitor also noted that when he was president of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Chicago, in 2004, Oussama Jamal ran a fundraising campaign for Palestinian activist Sami Al-Aryan, accused of terrorism and accused of being the U.S. leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, after a long legal battle, a prosecution deal and house arrest, Al-Arian was deported to Turkey in February 2015.
