Turkey damaging ties with Latin America
Following Iran's decades-long outreach activities to Muslim communities in Latin America to leverage its influence against the US, Turkey's pro-Iranian government has also started to make overtures into that part of the world, starting with the convention of the first ever Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders Summit, held in İstanbul last week.
It appears most embassies from Latin America located in the Turkish capital were taken aback when they heard about the summit. Many were not even aware of the meeting until President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the chief political Islamist in the country, made big headlines when he claimed that it was in fact Muslims who discovered America in 1178, some 300 years before Christopher Columbus. He then continued to astonish the world by revealing his desire to build a large mosque on a hilltop in Cuba.
For years Iran has tried to make inroads into Muslim communities of Latin America, but success has been very limited because of the demographic composition of Muslims, who are mostly immigrant Arabs and local converts. The Shiite community represents only a tiny portion of Muslims in Latin American countries and not even all Shiites are sympathetic towards radical Iranian ideologies. The vigilance of most host countries, who do not want to allow their territory to be used for attacks on the West, and especially the US, also thwarted Iran's efforts. Hence Iran lacked fertile ground to gain influence among Muslim communities, despite the fact that it maintains 16 cultural centers across Latin America.
There are indications that Iran has adopted new tactics in approaching Latin America by using Turkey as an enabler in its endeavors. This recalls a very familiar pattern we have seen since 2009, when Iran started funding thousands of Iranian firms in Turkey to circumvent UN- and US-imposed sanctions as well as to easily penetrate into third countries under the Turkish flag. Many of these firms are suspected to be front companies for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which uses them to gain a foothold in countries that would otherwise not allow them to operate.
Interestingly enough, the mushrooming of Iranian-funded companies in Turkey followed an incident in which Turkish authorities seized a shipment in December 2008 that was being sent from Iran to Venezuela. Cargo containers labeled as "tractor parts" were found to contain barrels of chemicals that were described by Turkish experts as an explosives lab. The cargo was transported to Turkey by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a company that was under US Treasury Department sanctions for providing logistical services to Iran's Ministry of Defense.
Perhaps similar tactics were also employed by Iran for the religious overtures towards Latin America using Turkey as a conduit. After all, the political environment in Turkey is very permissive and in fact conducive to that endeavor. The current government in predominantly Sunni Turkey has been effectively seized by political Islamists who feel passionately about the Iranian revolution, and President Erdoğan -- who has called Tehran his second home -- would probably have no problem facilitating Iran's dealings into Latin America.
It is quite an irony but Latin American diplomats in Ankara told me that it was in fact Venezuela that made the gathering of some 70 Latin American Muslim leaders in Turkey possible. There was significant help in terms of networking and logistics that was provided by Caracas. Given that Iran has more political capital in Venezuela than in all other Latin American countries stemming from the close ties it enjoyed with former President Hugo Chávez, it was interesting to see that Venezuela enabled Turkey to convene such a meeting in İstanbul.
The official host of the event was Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate and its semi-governmental foundation Diyanet Vakfı. It has been known that Iran has been trying to penetrate into the foundation for decades in order to gain influence among its leadership as well as its rank and file. Success was very limited until political Islamists came to power. The case file on the investigation into the highly secretive Iran-backed terrorist network Tawhid-Salam, which allegedly has close ties to senior government officials in Turkey, revealed that suspects have been monitoring Diyanet very closely.
It is worth recalling that Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Bagher Khorramshad paid an official visit to the directorate's head, Mehmet Görmez, in December 2012. Khorramshad and his delegation also met with officials from Diyanet Vakfı, proposing that they hold joint religious conferences. Considering that Diyanet has almost 150,000 employees, many imams, controls 85,000 mosques, owns some 11,000 real estate properties and many mosques and Quran-learning schools -- including some in foreign countries -- the Iranian influence on Diyanet stokes concerns among many.
Moreover, Erdoğan -- an autocratic leader who has grown increasingly isolated on the world stage -- may think that his political Islamist ideology will help him to gain some leverage in Latin America to use against the US in particular, a country that he has found himself disagreeing with more than ever. It is typical of the experiments entertained by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was helped in his drive to expand into Latin America by Chávez. Turkish leaders, who have fanned anti-Americanism at home with their strong anti-Western discourse, may have very well found fertile ground in Latin America, where conspiracies have already fostered anti-American sentiment.
Incriminated by a massive corruption scandal that involved billions of dollars, Erdoğan's drive for Latin America may also be motivated by a strong desire to rebuild his tarnished credentials. By delivering a fiery speech with lots of religious references at the Muslim Leaders' Summit, he was in fact giving a message of faith that was actually intended for his own constituency at home. In other words, there are domestic political and social considerations that have driven Erdoğan's outreach to Latin America.
Perhaps he was also trying to score a few points in his self-declared war against Fethullah Gülen, a well-respected and moderate Muslim scholar who has inspired a worldwide movement called Hizmet that is active in education, charity and interfaith dialogue in some 160 countries. Gülen is highly critical of the corruption and abuse of religion for political purposes by Erdoğan and his associates. He has also been a vocal opponent of the apparent tilt toward Iran by the current leadership of political Islamists in Turkey. For these reasons, Gülen has been facing a relentless smear campaign by Erdoğan since the corruption scandal broke in December 2013.
I was told recently that the Cuban ambassador in the Turkish capital has been under intense pressure to convince his government to allow Diyanet Vakfı to construct a mosque in Havana. Erdoğan's public declaration last week simply turned the issue of the mosque, which had been discussed quietly between Ankara and Havana for some time, into an open and controversial debate. Turkish leaders do not understand that driving a foreign policy based on religious grounds is tantamount to efforts to proselytize Latin America. It provokes strong resentment and hampers Turkey's initiatives to improve trade, economic and political ties with Latin America.
Turkey's political Islamists represent a narrow constituency and lack strong public support among Turks, who have been predominantly adherents of a moderate Sufi tradition for centuries. Yet they have an undue influence on policy decisions because of their dominance in the ruling party and the government at the moment. Many Islamists who had spent their youth fantasizing over and admiring the Iranian revolution have been placed by the current government in important positions. This is quite an irony in a Sunni nation but represents the depth of Iranian penetration into Turkey.
Allowing Turkey to be a conduit for an Iranian presence in Latin America clearly damages Turkey's national security. Ankara should blunt Iran's efforts rather than facilitate them, yet ideological affiliation and religious adventurism seem to have blinded the political Islamist leaders of Turkey.
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