U.S. media is reporting on comments by a Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader in which he says the group would “follow the Turkish” model should it come to power. According to a Bloomberg report:
Nov 28, 2011 4:04 PM GMT Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood would follow the Turkish model were it to gain power should President Bashar al-Assad’s regime fall, said Mohammad Shaqfah, the exiled leader of the outlawed Syrian group.“We are impressed with the Turkish governance system and we are not keen on the Iranian model,” Shaqfah said in a telephone interview from Turkey today. “We don’t want to impose anything on the people.”….Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Egyptian organization that is the oldest and most powerful Islamist movement in the region, has “always asked for freedom and democracy,” Shaqfah said. “We will not replace one dictatorship with another. We are against dictatorships.”Under a Brotherhood-led Syria, “all Syrians will have their complete freedom and elections will determine everything,” he said. “Even if we claim a majority, we will not act unilaterally; we will work with everyone.”………The opposition Syrian National Council, of which the Muslim Brotherhood is a part, “was formed by consensus and every decision is taken by consensus,” Shaqfah said. “No one in it has a majority and we don’t have, as some might speculate, control over it.”He welcomed the Arab League’s decision yesterday to impose unprecedented sanctions on Syria, including a freeze on financial assets and a travel ban on senior officials, after it failed to end the crackdown on protesters and refused to admit Arab observers. Still, he said the United Nations Security Council will probably have to step in to halt the bloodshed that the UN says has left more than 3,500 people dead……..“This regime is stubborn and it knows that any step toward reform will mean.”
References to the “Turkish model” have become almost a mantra for Muslim Brotherhood groups seeking to reassure the public about its potential ascent to power.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) has published a report titled “Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla” whose abstract states:
There is strong evidence for Turkish governmental involvement in the Gaza flotilla incident, with Turkish government support channeled through the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood. The IHH was not acting alone but rather was an integral part of a Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network.
With respect to the Global Muslim Brotherhood, report’s second conclusion states:
The Gaza flotilla incident brought into sharp focus an even more significant long- term development: the growing relationship between the Erdogan government and the Global Muslim Brotherhood, which has given rise to some of the most notorious Islamist terrorist groups – from al-Qaeda to Hamas. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood, while the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip acted as the main axis for this activity
Read the rest here.