Erdogan Islamizing Turkish institutions since 2007, Ali says

Director of the Middle East Center for Studies in Paris (CEMO), Abdel Rahim Ali, said Friday that Recep Tayyip Erdogan took off his moderate mask, years after he wore it to impress European institutions.

He wore the mask of the Muslim Brotherhood, he said, as a member of the Turkish branch of the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as Milli Gorus.

He added at a seminar by CEMO in Paris, titled "Turkish foreign policies and their disastrous consequences on Europe", that Erdogan made a radical change of course, both inside and outside Turkey, especially in 2007 when he headed the Justice and Development Party, the ruling party in Turkey now. Erdogan became the prime minister of Turkey, Ali said. His friend, Gul, became the president of the country, he added.

He noted that Erdogan quickly sent directives to Turkish embassies to strictly abide by the rules of the Islamic religion. In short, he wanted to Islamize these embassies, Ali said. The members of Milli Gorus were given government posts and some of them owned companies in the West, including the Turkish Airlines, he added.

He said Turkish embassies were also instructed to coordinate with Milli Gorus, including in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and France.

Some ambassadors rejected these instructions and submitted their resignations, Ali said. Others filed for political asylum in the countries where they worked.

He noted that at the religious level, the Directorate of Religious Affairs turned into the main stronghold of political Islam inside Turkey.

He said as of 2007, the movement started taking a different course because of the flow of a huge number of the members of Milli Gorus onto it.

The mosques controlled by Milli Gorus and the directorate were almost the same, Ali said. The two entities even decided the weekly Friday sermons in the same mosques, he added.

He said the directorate then started controlling Turkish mosques and Turkish citizens outside Turkey.

However, foreign governments did not know how to deal with the changes taking place inside the directorate, he said.

They boycotted Milli Gorus, not knowing that the directorate and Milli Gorus had become one and the same thing, he added.

Attending the seminar was a large host of researchers and experts. They included Ahmed Youssef Executive Director of CEMO, Roland Lombardi, Joachim Veliocas, Pierre Berthelot, Garen Shnorhokian. Several Middle East specialists from Europe also attended the seminar, along with a large number of Arab and French journalists.