Turkey Prez Erdogan attempts to displace Saudi Arabia as leader of Muslim world

The recent agreement of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with Israel to establish diplomatic relations has received an aggressive stand from Turkey with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan terming it as a US-sponsored deal.

The agreement sent a clear message that acceptability of Israel is increasing in the Middle East and the Arab world is now working towards ensuring peace in the region. However, Turkey took it otherwise and just a day after the announcement, recalled its ambassador from UAE and suspended its diplomatic relations with Abu Dhabi.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also issued a statement criticizing UAE and termed the move as a “hypocritical behavior’. The following day, Erdogan’s party joined the series of attacks and called the accord as a “political suicide” against the Palestinian cause.

However, one can be certain that the criticism by Turkey is just another attempt to increase Erdogan’s influence over Muslim countries by bifurcating the Muslim world and displacing Saudi Arabia as its leader.

The response by UAE on Turkey’s allegations highlighted the aspirations of Erdogan and double standards of Turkey. UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash reminded Turkey of history and highlighted its “double standards”.

He highlighted Turkey’s growing trade links with Israel and its significant economic presence in the country. Both the countries have a bilateral trade worth US$ 2 billion.

Gargash also reminded Turkey that more than half a million Israeli citizens visit Turkey every year. Most importantly, Turkey has set up its embassy in Tel Aviv and it was also one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, long back in 1949.

Besides Israel, Turkey is on a mission to consolidate its position in other Islamic nations and turn them into Turkish colonies. Qatar has become one of prominent targets and has turned into a protectorate of Turkey. Turkey has also been sponsoring violence and instability in Syria and Libya through Islamic State Terrorists and Islamic extremists. Erdogan has been efficiently using ISIS as a powerful tool for expanding his geopolitical and religious agenda.

Turkey is now eyeing on Azerbaijan and supplying its arms and stationing Turkish troops to ensure instability as well as its dominance over the country. The modus operandi of Erdogan to claim the leadership of Islamic world involves use of terrorism and ammunitions on one hand and promotion of Islamic extremism on the other. Erdogan has reorganized the religious directorate Diyanet, weaponized it, and deployed his loyalists in the institution.

Saudi Arabia has been the uncontested leader of the Islamic world and has proved its leadership by moves like uncountable financial assistance to the Islamic countries as well as fighting for their interest at global platforms. The deal between UAE and Israel is one of the major examples to substantiate the fact. UAE agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel for ensuring peace at one hand and compelled it to halt its ambitious plan to annex swathes of the Palestinian West Bank at the other.

Discharging the duties of an elder brother, Saudi Arabia was also the central force behind creation of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) — to bring all the Islamic countries on a common platform and to converge energies to achieve common goals. However, Turkey is challenging its leadership by creating a faction within the Muslim world and is leading the initiative of carving out a new splinter group including Pakistan, Malaysia, and a couple of other countries.

The recent statement of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi criticizing Saudi Arabia over not convening a meeting of OIC on Kashmir and threatening to call a separate meeting of Islamic countries on the issue was indeed a Turkey-sponsored move to sideline Saudi Arabia.

Amidst all the chaos created by Erdogan’s ambitions, the unity of Islamic countries has proved to be the biggest sufferer and global peace has become the biggest casualty. In the guise of promoting radical Islamist ideology, he is inflicting the biggest injury to Islam. His hypocrisy makes him more lethal to the Islamic world. China has a special position of a powerful ally in Erdogan’s game plan and despite of the tragic fact that a number of Muslims of Turkic origins, along with Uighur Muslims, have been detained in concentration camps in China’s Xinjiang, Erdogan is yet to break his silence and is silently supporting China’s efforts of ethnic cleansing of Muslims.

Anticipating a tough competition by Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, Erdogan is now optimistically looking towards South Asian countries, housing a large number of Muslim population. Erdogan has positioned the South Asian countries, including India, in his map of Islamic Caliphate and plans to dominate these countries by promoting violence and extremism. It is also believed that Erdogan is supporting Pakistan in its proxy war through terrorists against India.

It would be too late in case Indian authorities don’t react to check Turkey sponsored subversion activities in India and bring the regional powers together to control the growing influence of Turkey in the region. The global powers need to come together to check the expansionist and radical Islamist agendas of Erdogan by isolating Turkey and ensuring that Saudi Arabia keeps continuing to lead the Islamic world for ensuring peace and tranquility.