ISTANBUL -- Turkeys Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power for 13 years, is currently gearing up for the June 2015 general elections. During his campaign tour of Anatolia, Prime Minister Davutoğlu attended a party congress last month in his hometown of Konya, a bastion of political Islam since the 1970s. Broadcast live on every television channel, this AKP rally featured a surprise guest: Hamas chairman Khaled Mashal. The Palestinian leader -- who was welcomed by a crowd of thousands chanting slogans like Wed die for you, Hamas and Mujahid Mashal -- described Turkey as a source of strength for all Muslims, while also vowing to retake Jerusalem and Palestine. To all appearances, Mashals visit to Konya was a favorable omen for Davutoğlu and his fellow pan-Islamists, who wish to see Turkey become the leader of the Islamic world. In reality, however, Davutoğlu and his followers have little cause for optimism. To understand why, lets rewind two years to the September 2012 AKP congress, attended by Mashal as well as numerous other prominent Middle Eastern statesmen: Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood (who had been elected president of Egypt several months previously), Rashid al-Ghannushi (whose Ennahda party had won the elections in Tunisia), and Iraqi Sunni leader Tariq al-Hashimi. With political Islam making headway everywhere from Tunisia to Turkey, it seemed just a matter of months before the Syrian regime would be overthrown; Erdoğan had even pledged to say his prayers in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. One by one, the aforementioned statesmen came to the podium and showered Erdoğan with praise, while Mashal saluted the Turkish prime minister as a leader for the Islamic world. Davutoğlu and Erdoğan believed that Turkey had finally climbed back onto the world stage, nearly a century after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, and was about to make its pan-Islamic dream a reality.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:04:03 +0000
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