Dubai: The Turkish ruling party’s congress on Sunday showed its priorities for leadership in the coming years: more cooperation with regional powers including Egypt.
Several reasons behind the “expected” rapprochement between the two regional Islamic Sunni powers, analysts explained, include the heavy fighting in Syria and Egypt’s efforts for foreign financial aid amid severe economic problems.
“I see the issue in the framework of more cooperation and openness between Turkey and these countries,” said Ali Bakeer, a researcher in the Middle East and North African affairs at the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organisation (USAK).
He was referring to inviting both the Egyptian president Mohammad Mursi, and Hamas leader Khalid Mesha’al to attend the congress of the ruling party in Turkey on Sunday, in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected leader for the Islamist Justice and Development Party.
Scores of VIPs and senior officials were invited from countries in the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans,and Caucasus, Bakeer told Gulf News.
“This by itself is an indication that these countries will attract the focus of Turkish attention in the future and will receive priority, particularly in terms of bilateral coordination.”
Continuous fighting in Syria for nearly 19 months and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Syrians to neighbouring countries, mainly Turkey and Jordan, are among the factors that accelerated the Egyptian-Turkish rapprochement, Bakeer noted.
“There are common interests in areas of achieving regional stability, spreading democracy and confronting extremism,” he added.
Erdogan further pledged that Turkey, which is host to some 88,000 Syrian refugees as well as Syrian opposition groups, would continue to support the Syrian people wanting to force out the Bashar Al Assad regime.
He appealed to Russia, China and Iran to stop backing Al Assad’s regime.
“We call on Russia, China as well as Iran: please review your stance. History will not forgive those who stand together with cruel regimes,” he said.
Erdogan spoke against Israel’s “state terrorism” and praised Mursi for supporting the Palestinians.
No official invitations were extended to any official from Syria, Israel or Iran.
The Egyptian president also harshly criticised the Syrian regime.
“The events in Syria are the tragedy of the century,” Mursi said. “We will be on the side of the Syrian people until the bloodshed ends, the cruel regime is gone and Syrian people reach their just rights.”
Mesha’al did not ignore the civil war in Syria, saying that Hamas lauds the Syrian people’s uprising.
However, other analysts see other factors behind the “not surprising” rapprochement between the two Islamic Sunni political parties ruling in Egypt and Turkey, despite the main differences between the two regimes.
Emad Jadd, an expert at the Cairo-based Al Ahram Strategic Studies Centre, said the Egyptian Brotherhood feels concerned about the secular regime in Turkey. Yet, Turkey is a model of “an Islamic state, where an Islamic party is ruling and there is economic development. They [Egyptians] want [to benefit from] this economic progress,” he told Gulf News.
Mursi is seeking to open new channels to help his country’s economic recovery.
The Americans halted their aid to Egypt following the recent protests against the US embassy in Cairo and the burning of the American flag, and the “slow” government reaction to the development. Aid from other Asians and European countries is also not moving ahead.
“Mursi is seeking to develop relations with Turkey. He is in a state of rush to receive loans from abroad,” Jadd said.
During his visit to Turkey, Mursi signed a deal to borrow $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) from Turkey, half of the aid package Ankara promised Cairo last month. Both Mursi and Erdogan signed the deal, Egyptian media reports said.
