Global media is widely reporting on a leaked German government document accusing the Turkish government of supporting terroist organizations such as Hamas. According to one German media report:
August 16, 2016 A leaked internal government document accuses the government of supporting terrorist organizations such as Hamas, public broadcaster ARD reports.
Mosque group in Germany takes step back from Ankara (14 Aug 16) German held in Turkey’s post-coup crackdown released (12 Aug 16) The leaked report states the German government’s belief that Ankara has been deliberately financing Islamist and terror organizations with the direct consent of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the report aired by ARD on Tuesday.
The document written by the Interior Ministry was a confidential answer to a question posed by Die Linke (the Left Party) in the German parliament (Bundestag).
‘The numerous affirmations of solidarity and support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for Hamas and for armed Islamist opposition groups in Syria by the ruling AKP party and president Erdogan underscore their ideological affinity to their Muslim brothers,’ the document states, according to ARD.
The Muslim Brotherhood produced the first Egyptian president elected in free democratic elections after the resignation of aged dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. But president Mohammed Morsi was overthrown by the Egyptian military in June 2013.
The Muslim Brotherhood are not considered a terror organization by the EU or the United States.
Hamas are an Islamist militant group which controls the Gaza Strip, a section of Palestinian territory which lies between Israel and Egypt. They are considered a terror organization by the EU and the United States.
Ankara has repeatedly denied it delivers weapons to Islamist militants in Syria. But it has a very different attitude to Hamas as that of western states, viewing the group as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
According to Spiegel this is the first time the German government has publicly accused Turkey of having links to Hamas and other Islamist militant groups.
Read the rest here.
As we have frequently pointed out, a 2011 report report authored by the GMBDW editor examined the role of the Global Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in the background leading to the June 2010 Gaza Flotilla that was involved in a violent altercation with Israeli naval forces. Some of the conclusions of that report included:
- 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.
- 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.
- Although IHH [the flotilla main sponsor]declared that the flotilla was humanitarian in nature, the history of IHH suggests that it is not only a humanitarian organization…..Aside from these terrorist connections, this report demonstrates that IHH and the rest of the Turkish/MB network are in fact Islamist, politicized organizations.
In addition, In August 2014 the GMBDW was the first to report that that Salah al-Arouri, a Hamas military leader residing in Turkey, had admitted that the Hamas military wing was responsible for the kidnapping, an event which sparked another round of the Gaza conflict. Since then, we have further and extensively covered developments relating to the Hamas network in Turkey.
The GMBDW notes that to date, we have received not a single inquiry from any media concerning our 2011 report. Apparently, the media are far more interested in a leaked, unsourced government document than a 120 page, fully referenced report (with 400 endnotes and a similar number of footnotes,) that clearly laid out the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas structure in Turkey over five years ago.