Yasin Aktay, advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), wrote a column titled “What’s Biden trying to do in Saudi Arabia?”
His essay was against the background of a CIA report on the Jamal Khashoggi murder case.
“The report, which was ignored with dirty plans during former US President Donald Trump’s term, being sensationally brought up on the agenda during Biden’s term does not show that the new US administration is seeking justice,” wrote Aktay.
“On the contrary, it is very clear that it wants to use the Khashoggi case against Saudi Arabia as a trump card,” he added.
“Our aim in the Khashoggi case, on the other hand, has never been to corner Saudi Arabia in any manner,” explained Aktay, but went on to confirm that “the Biden administration is not seeking justice or humanitarian values in the Khashoggi case.”
“On the contrary, it wants to use this case as an instrument for its own Middle East policies,” he argued, concluding that “due to such approaches, the US is not a convenient authority to seek justice on any grounds in the world.”
Aktay’s statements leave readers wondering if they stemmed from strongly held principles, from a logic followed by a country with sense of rationality, or political opportunism.
Given Turkey’s awareness of its involvement in human rights violations, Aktay’s argument is undoubtedly anchored in political opportunism.
Ankara realized it could be targeted by Washington’s selective practicing of human rights defense. It is hard to believe that the US truly cares for human rights when it continues to reject the international court’s findings on Israeli crimes against Palestinians and ignores Iranian crimes in the region.
Aktay’s words go to show that Turkey perceives that it is being pursued by Washington’s choosy human rights defense policy. Ankara is also now trying to warm up to France and Egypt.
More so, Erdogan's advisor tries to justify Turkey's hostile stance towards Saudi Arabia, after gathering that Riyadh is not shaken by selective files. Saudi Arabia had fully taken on its moral responsibility and prosecuted the perpetrators of the crime.
It goes without saying that any politician, Saudi or otherwise, is entitled to act in their own political interests, especially in a region full of predators. But it must be noted that Turkey’s stances cannot be polished or diluted through a single column.
It was Turkey that showed hostility towards moderate countries in the region, whether it is Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the UAE. Turkey, like Iran, is expanding militarily from Iraq to Syria, igniting crises in the Mediterranean, and playing the role of an occupying force in Libya.
Also, Erdogan's Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the Middle East, like Iran. It hires and fires state employees based on their ideological beliefs and then has the audacity to lecture other countries of the region about human rights and democracy.
“Yavaş yavaş,” meaning “slowly” in Turkish, is the most appropriate reply to the statements put out by Erdogan’s advisor. Turkey’s track record is rampant with mistakes, extortion, and fabricating crises that can’t be washed away by simply writing an article, especially that it was the first to exploit Khashoggi, dead or alive.
