Why is Turkey supporting the Yemeni Al-Islah Party of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Turkey’s role in Yemen has seen a remarkable escalation in recent times, through President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s exploitation of his growing influence in the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, which is represented by the Al-Islah Party which controls the joints of legitimate government.
According to a previous report on the Ahwal al-Turki website, Turkish intelligence services attempted to replicate the situation in Libya in Yemen. At the start of last year, Syria sent thousands of mercenaries and terrorist fighters from Syria to Yemen to support the Al-islah Party in Yemen. The mercenaries sent them to fight in Turkey under the banner of Yemen in exchange for a large sum of up to $ 5,000 per soldier per month to support the Muslim Brotherhood, as happened in Libya.
The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said: Erdogan will not stay at the Libyan border. The target is Egypt, Yemen and other countries… those mercenaries in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and other countries… belong to countries loyal to their group.
The Yemeni Al-Islah Party maintains a close religious alliance with Erdogan and his party (the Justice and Islamic Development Party of Turkey). They are united by the common affiliation of the Muslim Brotherhood, after the Houthi militia took control of Sana’a, many leaders, activists and journalists from Islah fled Yemen to Turkey. A number of their leaders have invested part of their money by setting up investment projects in Turkey.
Ankara had sent dozens of intelligence operatives to Yemen under the slogan of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Organization, and some of them arrived in Shabwa through the expedition border post in Mahra governorate, after having obtained facilities from the Yemeni interior minister, Ahmed Al-Maysari and the former governor of Mahra Rajeh Bakrit, according to what was previously revealed by the London newspaper Al-Arab.
Similar to his ambitions in Libya, Erdogan sought the support of the Al-Islah party to fight the Arab League. On the one hand, due to the importance of Aden and the Red Region, the Turkish President is using his Yemeni brothers to expand his influence in the country and control the seaports, especially Bab-el-mandeb and Socotra’s maritime areas and international security as well as global security and economy, this is why Erdogan is currently coordinating with allies in the region to respond to Arab anti-terrorism and extremist projects, undermining the security and stability of the region and threatening the freedom of navigation in the region.
Researchers and political analysts confirmed that Erdogan is trying to replicate the situation in Libya in Yemen based on his expansionism and economic ambitions, but others question whether Turkey’s attitude towards Yemen is due to control or relations with Iran. Has the conflict of interest in support of the Muslim Brotherhood and opposition to Al-Houthi been realized?
