Turkey, Saudis, UAE set aside rifts over Muslim Brotherhood, tighten economic and security ties

The Middle East is realigning. The global mega-shift in alliances continues with the UAE and Saudi Arabia launching a new era of ties to Turkey, despite the latter’s overt support for the Muslim Brotherhood. The “rapid change in Turkey’s complex relationship with the Gulf, which is now back on a more friendly footing after years of rivalry” is really a continuation of a key event from 2021. Two years ago, the rift over the Muslim Brotherhood between Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other regional allies — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt — ended. Full relations with Qatar were restored following a Saudi summit. These new ties have been concluded despite the strong support for the Muslim Brotherhood from Turkey and Qatar, and the fact that the Brotherhood was outlawed in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Clearly the Muslim Brotherhood has now slipped in priority, and is below the greater goal of uniting the ummah.

Erdogan, with his visions of a revived Ottoman Empire, is soaring ahead and becoming more aggressive than ever. Let’s not forget also the fury over Qur’an desecrations and the demands from Saudi Arabia and Turkey for Western countries to adapt themselves to Sharia blasphemy rules.

The West, in the absence of strong American leadership globally, can expect an onslaught as the global ummah tightens its internal relations. In March, Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia resumed ties in a China-brokered deal.

“Turkey deals with Saudi Arabia, UAE herald new security ties amid US shift to counter China, Russia,” by Tom Hussain, South China Morning Post, July 25, 2023:

A string of deals by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has established Turkey as an important new security partner for the Gulf monarchies, at a time when the United States is undertaking a drawdown of forces in the Middle East in line with its shift in foreign policy focus towards containing China and Russia.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week made a landmark tour of the Gulf, returning to Ankara having secured US$11.5 billion in financial assistance from the UAE to help shore up Turkey’s depleted foreign exchange reserves, fast-depreciating lira currency and yawning budgetary deficit.

Erdogan also reached agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia to establish joint defence production programmes with Turkey, which has the second-largest military in Nato. Turkish defence manufacturer Baykar received its largest overseas orders from Saudi Arabia for the transfer of technology and joint production of its military drones.

The deals signed in the Gulf during Erdogan’s visit represent a rapid turnaround in relations since 2020. Turkey and the Saudi-Emirati alliance were at loggerheads throughout the 2010s because they backed opposite sides in Egypt, Libya and other regional states where civil wars were sparked by the Arab spring revolutions at the start of the decade.

“Many of the factors which led some Gulf Cooperation Council states to feel threatened by Turkey’s foreign policy have drastically changed, giving Riyadh and Abu Dhabi less reason to perceive Ankara as a dangerous actor,” said Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based geopolitical risk consultancy.

Not all suspicions have been removed and there are potential scenarios whereby geopolitical tensions could resurface, “making it difficult to predict the directions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s rapprochements with Turkey”.

“But I believe that these Gulf states and Ankara can build lasting strategic partnerships as all the regional actors adjust to the realities of a more multipolar world and countries in the Middle East act with more agency and autonomy from Washington,” Cafiero said.

Under the Islamist Erdogan, Turkey and its wealthy Gulf ally Qatar supported the elected Muslim Brotherhood governments which emerged in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia during the Arab spring rebellions.

This alarmed the Saudi and Emirati monarchies….