RACHEL EHRENFELD: ERDOGAN’S RUSSIA PROBLEM AND VICE VERSA
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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s growing Islamist tendencies, his crackdown on the military and the media have upset many in Turkey. Revelations of the gold-for-oil raid and the extent of his and his associates’ corruption; bribes to members of his government; and his son’s corrupt land and construction deals with the Saudi Yassin al Qadi, a U.S.-designated terrorist who funded al Qaeda (the Europeans removed his designation) brought condemnation from the liberal opposition, thousands of protesters to the streets, and raised much criticism towards Edrogan’s growing totalitarianism.
During the past 11 years Erdogan has managed to consolidate power and move towards radical Islam under the guise of advancing Turkey as an “Islamic democracy.” However, as we have been witnessing over the last four years, the oxymoron “Islamic democracy” -a Muslim Brotherhood invention- has been used successfully to turn the ‘Arab Spring’ into a scorching Arab summer.
While Erdogan’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, Hamas, of Morsi in Egypt, and of al Qaeda fighters in Syria did not seem to upset the Obama Administration, it made the Russians nervous. With a good reason: the presence of a large Chechen community in Turkey that supports the separatist and Islamist terrorist activity in Russia’s Caucasus.
Indeed, Erdogan’s current crisis began with a 2011 Russian crack-down on a drug-money-laundering ring in the Caucasus, that laundered revenues from trading Afghan opium with the Taliban. The investigation also revealed illegal gold transactions in Russian banks, which the Chechens shared with their Turkish counterparts. This led to the arrests of the sons of a Turkish minister and 34 other suspects on December 17, and to mass demonstrations against the government.
While Erdogan’s authoritarianism would not be particularly
bothersome to Putin, who dislikes the idea of being surrounded by democratic-minded states (his policies toward Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine attest to that), Chechen terrorism certainly is. Clearly, Russia would prefer a secular to an Islamist Turkey leaking jihadis into former Soviet space.
The upheaval surrounding Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s corruption presents the military, and the Turkish liberal opposition, with a unique opportunity to prevent the country from going the way of the Muslim Brotherhood (that is, if Erdogan failed to replace the secular police officers he purged with radical Muslims). Since the U.S. doesn’t seem to care, Putin will most likely use the opportunity to support the Turkish military, as he did Sisi, who removed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This would also help to make Putin as a greater player in the Middle East and on the world stage.
The discord with Russia may or may not play into Edrogan’s and, more importantly, Turkey’s faith in the near future. In the meantime, Erdogan and his lawless government are still in charge.
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