The UAE should give account rather than set conditions to Turkey

The ordinary summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, held in the Saudi city of AlUla, concluded with the other members resolving the problem they had had with Qatar for 3.5 years. Following this development, the most frequently asked question was how it would affect relations with Turkey. Would Qatar's repairing its relations with the other Gulf countries require it to move away from Turkey? Or what would Turkey's view of this agreement be?

First of all, establishing peace in the Gulf and resolving disagreements is not a matter contrary to Turkey's interests. From the beginning Turkey did not wish for such a dispute to exist among the Gulf countries. Turkey's relations with Qatar were not meant to spoil ties with the others. On the contrary, under the defense cooperation agreement between Turkey and Qatar, it was impossible for Turkey to remain silent in the face of an operation launched against Qatar, and it did not. In doing so, Turkey did not go down the road of deepening the dispute between the other countries and Qatar; on the contrary, even as it stepped in to prevent an operation against Qatar, its aim was not to form a front against the others but nothing other than to establish peace among brothers. Precisely as the Book commands: "The believers are brothers, so make peace between your brothers" and "If two parties among the believers fight each other, make peace between them; but if one of them wrongs the other and refuses peace, then you too fight against it until it submits to the truth and to peace."

If peace has been established today, Turkey will be pleased by it before anyone. This should be known.

That is one dimension of the matter. But the other dimension is the UAE's attitude in this process in particular. Independently of Qatar, and even before it, it has continued to be hostile at every stage. Supporting coups in Turkey, funding terrorist activities against Turkey, and organizing coups and counter-operations in countries with which Turkey has good relations are practically routine activities of the UAE. Nevertheless, the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, following the latest understanding in the Gulf, said that it wanted to repair relations with Turkey "within the framework of mutual respect for sovereignty", but also put forward a condition: that Turkey give up being the main supporter of the Brotherhood.

In fact, let alone requesting something from Turkey in recent years, let alone putting forward conditions for normalizing relations with Turkey, the UAE ought to be accounting to Turkey and to all humanity for the crimes it has committed. When it should be answering for the systematic crimes it has committed in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Somalia and of course Turkey, what does it mean to put forward such an absurd condition?

The content of the condition is entirely absurd, because first of all Turkey has no official policy of being the main supporter of the Brotherhood.

That Gargash, who speaks of mutual respect for sovereignty, one sentence later both accuses Turkey of supporting the Brotherhood and calls on it to give up that support shows, to put it very mildly, that he does not know what he is saying. There is no such special decision or policy, but let us say Turkey does support the Brotherhood, what is it to you? Whatever Turkey does, it does within the framework of its own sovereign rights. It is in fact the UAE that has already completely liquidated all the opponents in its own country, left them to die on gallows or in prisons, and, not content with that, has set out to hunt down everyone known as the Brotherhood in other countries, and in doing so does not refrain from committing every kind of crime against humanity.

We ask where the UAE, which sees itself as having the right to interfere in everything that happens in other countries, gets this right. In fact, because of this meddlesome attitude it has also taken on the responsibility for the Rabaa Square massacre in Egypt and for all the human rights violations suffered by the more than 60 thousand members of the Brotherhood who are currently in prison.

When Turkey does not close its doors to people fleeing unjust execution or imprisonment in Egypt, regardless of whether they are Brotherhood or not, it is not supporting the Brotherhood; it is merely applying a policy of respect for human life and dignity "within the framework of its own sovereign rights". The regime in Egypt has no respect whatsoever for human life and dignity. People are executed, imprisoned and tortured without accountability, without trial. In fact one would wish that the Islamic countries, through the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council, through all their international institutions, would collectively develop a sensitivity about human rights violations in their own countries. In Islamic countries Muslim blood is cheaper than water. Muslim dignity has no place. Human rights violations of the gravest degree are routine. Wouldn't it be better for Muslims to develop these sensitivities among themselves, without giving Western countries or international organizations any opportunity at all in this matter?

Since we are saying that in this matter the UAE has no condition to put forward to Turkey but an account to give, it can begin giving an account of the crimes against humanity it committed in Yemen and of the conviction it casually handed down, by putting a sack over their heads without granting a right of defense, under torture and on the basis of statements taken without an interpreter, against the Turkish businessman Mehmet Ali Öztürk and his wife Emine Öztürk, who visited the UAE three and a half years ago, and of keeping him in a dungeon for three and a half years. In this account, which involves torture, abduction and unjust restriction of liberty, there is also the cooperation carried out with the US Consulate General in Istanbul.

The ledger of this account was opened some time ago by Attorney Gülden Sönmez and Attorney Mete Gençer. The application made to the UN invites the UAE and the US Consulate General in Istanbul to give an account. Let us write the details of the account later.