Erdogan’s historic game defeat.. Did the Turkish President abandon the Brotherhood?

It seems that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has effectively abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group, after many measures started since last year, by ceasing their activities, suspending their actions and moving to deport some of them, until the Israeli President was received in Ankara; This has led some of the group’s cronies to curry favor with Erdogan in order to keep them.

Erdogan’s abandonment of his old allies and his move to improve relations with some Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, showed a sudden change in relations with them. He is trying to convince them that his fighting methods have become a thing of the past, which raised an urgent question: Has Erdogan closed his page with the Muslim Brotherhood?

A Turkish report on the opposition website Ahval strongly highlights Erdogan’s relationship with the group, revealing the fact that he has abandoned them; After the Arab Spring began in 2011, Turkey’s president immediately embraced Muslim-Brotherhood-linked political groups as a means of strengthening Turkey’s role as a leader in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, and he easily supported the government of Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood elected president after former President Hosni Mubarak relinquished power in 2011.

This infuriated Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who regard the Brotherhood as a terrorist group that threatens the Arab region, a view that has proven true, contributing to a small Cold War between Turkey and Qatar on the one hand and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt on the other; The two sides have clashed heavily in several events including the Libyan civil war.

Over time, the Middle East has changed dramatically since the early days of the Arab Spring – and Turkey has changed with it; Erdogan is less glamorous than a decade ago, according to Mustafa Guerbouz, a member of the Program for Arab World Studies at the American University in Washington, Erdogan’s embrace of the Brotherhood came at a time when he was stronger at home than in his political position; allowing him to support the Brotherhood more effectively in the region, using that as a card to garner support around his regime, but such rhetoric is no longer as valuable.

The military and judicial deep state that had previously ousted Islamist-leaning governments in Turkish history was neutralized by purges and trials that gave Erdogan room to maneuver, and Erdogan received a parliamentary majority that remained intact until it lost strength to his opposition in 2015.

Today, Erdogan is suffering from declining approval ratings, the Turkish economy is experiencing high inflation, high unemployment, and a shrinking Turkish lira, together with his insecure political stance. So Erdogan has had to find ways out of his geopolitical isolation, including making adjustments to forces hostile to his embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood has also been beaten in the wake of the Arab Spring across the region; Governments allied with the Muslim Brotherhood fell one after another from Tunisia to Sudan, and were expelled by powerful men or military councils with ties to the Gulf states, as well as internal disagreements among older members who continue to uphold their rigid hierarchical shape of decision-making and excessive secrecy, and a smaller cadre of members who have been disappointed with their leaders, while many of their leaders remain in exile through Turkey, Europe, and Qatar, thus remaining out of touch with the reality of the new generations.

Ahval noted that with these developments the Erdogan government had already shown that it was prepared to at least limit the Muslim Brotherhood if that meant taking advantage of opportunities for rapprochement that could benefit it geopolitically. When Turkey began to advance its diplomacy to normalize relations with Egypt, Turkish officials ordered media channels affiliated with the Egyptian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to tone down their criticism of al-Sissi, a move welcomed by Cairo.

Gulf State Analytics CEO Giorgio Cavero commented: This was an important factor in the UAE’s desire to view its relationship with Turkey differently, and developments in the Arab region have made the group less influential.

This means that Erdogan’s reintegration into the Middle East would mean an end to his sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood altogether, however, while it would like to see better relations with Egypt, Turkey has refused to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group like the Egyptians and their Gulf allies, while there has been no sign of the authorities turning over any of the Brothers to Egypt.

Yet for Erdogan, the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political force in the region can only be a setback for his past ambitions for leadership in the Middle East; this means that Erdogan’s regional game suffered a major defeat.