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Turkey uses recent developments in Egypt to strengthen its position in region

Politics Materials 17 February 2011 10:51 (UTC +04:00)
Turkey, calling on Cairo’s authorities to hold reforms and fulfill the people’s demands from the first days of the developments in Egypt, uses the situation in the Middle East to strengthen its position in the region, Svante Cornell, Director of the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, believes.
Turkey uses recent developments in Egypt to strengthen its position in region

Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.16 / Trend A. Tagiyeva /

Turkey, calling on Cairo's authorities to hold reforms and fulfill the people's demands from the first days of the developments in Egypt, uses the situation in the Middle East to strengthen its position in the region, Svante Cornell, Director of the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, believes.
"Ankara will use the developments in Egypt to strengthen its position in the region," Cornell told Trend over phone from Stockholm.

Large-scale anti-governmental protests were held in Egypt. Thousands of people in different cities across the country went to the streets, demanding President Hosni Mubarak's resignation and the dissolution of parliament. The unrests in the country have killed at least 300 people and injuring over 4,000. A one million march passed at Tahrir Square in Cairo to demand the resignation of President Mubarak. As a result, on Friday, Mubarak announced about his resignation. The leadership passed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Earlier, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to lend an ear to the demonstrators and leave his post.

Erdogan stated that Mubarak should take decisive measures that meet the opposition's expectations.
Cornell said that Turkey has been pursuing a policy of approximation with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and supports Hamas group, sharply protesting Israel over the last two years. This indicates Ankara's aspiration for the Islamization of the region.

"Turkey is pursuing the only goal - to strengthen its position in the Middle East as a leader of countries of political Islam," the expert believes.

Cornell said Turkey considers the developments in Egypt not as democratization in the region, but as political Islamization.

"Turkey does not care about democratization in Egypt and other Arab countries. It is striving for Islamization of these countries," Cornell added.

Ankara has a strong influence on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and in all the processes taking place in the Middle East, so the developments in Egypt will contribute to turning Turkey into a leader of the Islamic countries.

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