The Dangerous Neo-Ottomans and the Great Bat Ye'or: A Conversation with Alexandre del Valle, Part II
Grégoire Canlorbe: Is Erdoğan's Turkey a danger at Europe's gates?
Alexandre del Valle: Erdoğan's Turkey is definitely a danger -- comparable to the Ottoman Empire. Erdoğan's entire geopolitical and ideological vision appears to rest on the idea of continuity with that empire. He seems to see himself as the heir of the Ottoman sultans, even as the restorer of an empire abolished by Atatürk. He appears to regard that rupture as being secular and anti-religious.
The movement from which Erdoğan comes, Milli Görüş, is in some ways the Turkish equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood. This international Turkish Islamist organization regards Atatürk, the founder of modern and secular Turkey, as a traitor who destroyed a sacred institution, the caliphate. Erdoğan appears to be a proponent of historical reparation: he wants to reconcile Turkey with its Ottoman and Islamic past in order to restore imperial greatness to it.
An empire always seeks to expand its influence. From this perspective, Erdoğan sees the Muslim communities of Europe as a natural extension of Turkish power, not just the Muslims of Cyprus, Greece, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Romania, but also the millions of Muslims settled in Western Europe as a result of mass immigration.
Turkey therefore presents itself as the only great Eurasian Muslim country capable of embodying the leadership of European Islam. After the fall of Andalusia in Spain and of Muslim Sicily, it was the Ottoman Empire that long carried political Islam in Europe, especially through the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Erdoğan seems to view a Neo-Ottoman Turkey as the natural heir to this European Islam.
That inclination might explain Erdoğan's apparent desire to extend the influence of networks such as Milli Görüş, but also official structures such as the Turkish Diyanet, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the German DITIB— the Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs—its offshoot in European countries. Through these religious and consular networks, Erdoğan spreads a neo-Ottoman state Islam that seeks to impose itself as the protector, sponsor, and leader of Europe's Muslims.
Canlorbe: What importance does Cyprus have in Erdoğan's plans?
del Valle: Turkey occupies 37% of Cyprus. Year after year, its officials there pursue a policy of demographic colonization. Tens of thousands of Turks, notably from eastern Anatolia and often Islamized, have been settled in the northern part of the island presumably to alter the demographic balance. In the long term, Erdoğan's apparent objective is to ensure that Cyprus is placed entirely under Turkish influence, or better, under Turkish control.
The Turkish government also exerts constant pressure on Greece, particularly around its islands, while instrumentalizing the Muslim minority present on Greek territory. Turkish officials regularly raise issues concerning the Muslim minority in Muslim Thrace in its diplomacy with Greece, advocating for its rights and identity while using these issues as leverage in broader bilateral disputes.
Turkey also seeks to extend its influence among the Muslim minorities of Bulgaria, Romania, the Balkans, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Macedonia -- a considerable geopolitical lever.
For these reasons, the Turkish presence in the Mediterranean represents a direct threat to Cyprus and Greece. The danger is also ideological and is promoted among local communities. Through its religious, collaborative, and consular networks, Turkey exerts growing influence over the Muslim communities of Western Europe that have recently emerged from immigration, as well as over the historic Muslim communities of Eastern Europe.
In 2008, Erdoğan shocked Angela Merkel by declaring that the assimilation of Turks in Germany constituted a "crime against humanity." For Erdoğan, asking Turkish Muslims to integrate into the values of their host countries amounts to attacking the Turks' Islamic identity.
Such a view reveals a policy of subversion that, in the long term, threatens the sovereignty of European states. Large Muslim communities—10% on average in industrialized European countries, often from 20% to 80% in some cities or districts—will become Muslim in France, Belgium, Sweden, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. In a few years or decades, depending on the countries, the percentage could go as high as 20-30% and create loyalty conflicts and risks of partition.
Europe will then find itself undermined from within by a foreign power that uses religion, demography, and identity as instruments of political influence, as in many places it already does, such as Molenbeek, Belgium; Malmö, Sweden; Marseille, France, and quite a few cities in the United Kingdom.
Canlorbe: Have the Abraham Accords had a positive effect on the perception that Islamic populations have of the West, and that small piece of the West that is Israel?
del Valle: Unfortunately, no. The Abraham Accords are a good thing, and the United Arab Emirates was one of their pioneers. Saudi Arabia was also considering joining them, but in Europe, their reception was largely distorted by the choice of those Muslim interlocutors who were favored by states and institutions. The individuals who claim to represent Europe's Muslims are backed politically and financially by Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, and Kuwait. Those countries fund and support Sunni associations and mosques linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Sunni movements most hostile to Israel, alongside Turkey's Millî Görüş movement.
Both organizations have close ties to Hamas.
The representation of Europe's Muslims has often been entrusted to countries, associations, or networks ideologically hostile to Israel: Qatar, some movements linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Milli Görüş, or other radical Islamist organizations. These networks are deeply anti-Zionist, extremely pro-Palestinian, and sometimes even complacent toward Hamas. The result is that the Abraham Accords, which should be seen as a diplomatic, security, and civilizational advance, have been presented in Europe as a betrayal of Islam.
Countries that support Islamist associations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Turkey and Qatar, as well as pro-Iranian influence groups that are highly active within radical left-wing and, at times, populist political movements, exert pressure on Muslims to regard countries supportive of the Abraham Accords—such as Morocco and the United Arab Emirates—as traitors to Islam. Those countries are portrayed as complicit with an allegedly "satanic" Israel, accused of massacring Palestinians in Gaza who are associated with Hamas. Hamas, itself a jihadist organization rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood, is in turn presented as the purest embodiment of the Islamic cause in its struggle against the American and Israeli-Zionist "devils."
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