Blog Post

AEIdeas

In recent decades, Turkey has reached out in three ways to the outside world: Through its schools, its businesses, and its religious leaders.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s personal feud with ally-turned-rival Fethullah Gülen has eviscerated an international school system whose virtues Turkish diplomats once preached (the visa fraud investigated by the FBI with regard to some of those schools in the United States is a separate issue; any violations should be met with the full force of US law).

Turkish businesses and business associations often preach the value of Turkey across the world. Turkish Airlines has transformed itself into one of the world’s largest airlines with an expansive international network. Turkish construction firms work globally, and Turkish electronics and manufactured goods have an increasingly prominent place in the global economy. Politically-motivated tax liens and property seizures have dampened confidence both inside Turkey and with regard to its firms more broadly.

It took years, but Erdogan now has full control over all mechanisms of state—official, unofficial, and religious.

The last element of Turkish soft-power has been its religious outreach. The Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) controls not only mosques in Turkey but also helps staff them abroad. Especially under Erdogan, Turkey has undertaken a massive international program of mosque building and Islamic center construction, including in the United States.

In Europe, however, some countries have begun to worry that Turkish imams are engaged in more than spiritual services. The Dutch government, for example, has now warned people about ‘agent imams’ from Turkey and has solicited complaints about malfeasance.

The Germany Green Party, not known as a bastion of anti-immigration sentiment or Islamophobia, has asked their government to investigate officially the Diyanet imams’ intelligence activities.

It took years, but Erdogan now has full control over all mechanisms of state—official, unofficial, and religious. If those states engage in malfeasance abroad, directed either against the Turkish Diaspora or against foreign targets, there should be no confusion about responsibility. That European governments now raise concerns about Diyanet activities that stray from religious to espionage should raise concerns globally not only about what Turkish institutions answering to the Turkish government are doing, but why.