ISTANBUL: When President Tayyip Erdogan opened a new court complex this month, Turkey’s senior cleric sealed the ceremony with a Muslim prayer, triggering protests from critics who said his actions contravened the secular constitution.
“Make this wonderful work beneficial and blessed for our nation, my God,” Ali Erbas said in his address, adding that many judges had “worked to bring the justice which (God) ordered.”
Erbas’s appearance at the Sept. 1 ceremony in Ankara, and the wave of opposition criticism over his comments, reflect his rising profile at the head of a state-run religious organization and the growing influence it has attained under Erdogan.
The president, whose ruling AK Party is rooted in political Islam, has overturned decades-old restrictions imposed on religion by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, placing Islam center-stage in political life.
Last year Erbas delivered the first sermon in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia after the Byzantine church-turned-museum was reconverted into a mosque. He did so while clutching a sword, saying this was traditional for preachers in mosques taken by conquest. The church was captured by Ottoman forces in 1453.
His state-run Diyanet organization, or Religious Affairs Directorate, has its own television channel which is recruiting 30 new staff. Its budget, which already matches that of an average ministry, will rise by a quarter next year to 16.1 billion lira ($1.86 billion), government data shows.
Erdogan further endorsed Erbas last week by extending his term at the Diyanet. He was with Erdogan again on Monday in New York, reciting a prayer at the opening of a skyscraper that will house Turkish diplomats based there.
Erdogan’s political foes says Erbas’s growing profile is at odds with the Turkish Republic’s secular constitution, and shows the president is using religion to boost his waning ratings ahead of an election scheduled for 2023.
“It is completely unacceptable for the Religious Affairs Directorate to be used politically by the AKP,” said Bahadir Erdem, deputy chairman of the opposition Iyi Party.
“The reason for Ali Erbas repeatedly making statements that polarize the nation is very clearly the government using religious sensitivities of those whose votes it thinks it can win,” he said.
Apart from the Diyanet’s growing prominence, secularists also fret over a sharp increase in religious ‘Imam Hatip’ schools, a 10 percent rise in mosque numbers in the last decade, the lifting of a ban on Muslim headscarves in state institutions and the taming of Turkey’s powerful military, once a bastion of secularism, all during Erdogan’s rule.
Responding to the criticism over the Diyanet, the presidency shared a picture of Ataturk standing in prayer beside a Muslim cleric at a ceremony outside Turkey’s new parliament 100 years ago, suggesting that even the founder of the secular republic gave space to religion alongside politics.
The secularist main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) accuse Erdogan of deliberately using Erbas to distract public attention from Turkey’s mounting economic woes.
“He has put the Religious Affairs Directorate chairman on the field like a pawn,” CHP spokesman Faik Oztrak said.
Turkey’s constitution says the Diyanet must act in line with the principles of secularism, without expressing political views.
Erbas, a former theology professor who took office in 2017, has not addressed the criticism directly but says his role is limited to religious guidance.
“In line with the duty set out in the constitution to ‘enlighten society regarding religion’, our directorate is working to convey to our people in the most correct way the principles of Islam,” he said in a speech last week.
That message does not reassure secularist critics.
Erbas’s frequent presence at Erdogan’s side reveals a “very significant elevation of the role of Sunni Islam in government in Turkey,” said Soner Cagaptay, a director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“The secularist firewall of the 20th century, established by Ataturk and guarded by his successors, that has separated religion and government, and religion and education, has completely collapsed,” he said.
Erbas has courted controversy in the past. Last year his suggestion that homosexuality causes illness triggered a clash between Erdogan’s AKP and Turkey’s lawyers’ associations over freedom of expression.
But he has won support from Erdogan’s nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli.
“Turkey is a Muslim country,” he said. “The allergy against the Islamic religion of those wicked people who have broken off ties with our national and spiritual values is an incurable clinical case.”
Turkey’s top Islamic cleric moves center stage, irking secularists
Turkey’s top Islamic cleric moves center stage, irking secularists
- Political foes says Ali Erbas’s growing profile is at odds with the Turkish Republic’s secular constitution
Syrian mayor says Israel collected arms from locals in Golan buffer zone
The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it could not comment.
Mohamed Mreiwel, mayor of the village of Jabata Al-Khashab in Quneitra province, said on Monday that he had met three times with Israeli officials who had asked to see him.
Israel, long a foe of Syria, has launched hundreds of strikes on Syrian military sites since the fall of president Bashar Assad on December 8, destroying most of the army’s arsenal, a war monitor has said.
The same day Assad was toppled by Islamist-led forces, Israel also announced that its troops were crossing the armistice line and occupying the UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
Mreiwel said that in his first meeting with the Israelis, “they asked for weapons to be handed over to them within 48 hours.”
Residents of the village, which is located in the buffer zone, had complied with the request, he said.
Syria’s army collapsed in the face of the rebel offensive, with thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserting their posts.
Some Syrians seized weapons left behind by soldiers and security personnel, Mreiwel said, with the Israeli army “dedicating an area for people to hand over those weapons.”
During his latest meeting with the Israelis on Sunday, “we told them that we no longer had any weapons and that if we had any, we would hand them over to the Syrian government,” said Mreiwel.
He added that he told the Israeli officials that “we are not allowed to meet with you,” as Syria and Israel are still technically at war and do not have diplomatic ties.
Israeli troops have conducted patrols on the main street of Jabata Al-Khashab, an AFP correspondent said.
Israeli tanks are also stationed in nearby Baath City, named for the now suspended political party that ran Syria for decades until Assad’s ousting.
Israel seized much of the Golan Heights from Syria in war in 1967, later annexing the territory in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
Jordan, Syria to combat arms and drugs smuggling, resurgence of Daesh
DUBAI: Jordan and Syria agreed to form a joint security committee to secure their border and combat the smuggling of arms and drugs as well as cooperating to prevent the resurgence of Daesh, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Tuesday.
During the press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Al-Shibani said that the latest US move to ease sanctions should be a step towards full lifting of sanctions. Shibani said existing sanctions were a main hurdle to the recovery of Syria
Israel calls for pressure on Turkiye to stop attack on Kurds
JERUSALEM: Turkiye must face pressure from world powers to stop attacks on Kurds in northern Syria, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
"The international community must call on Turkey to stop these aggressions and killing. The Kurds must be protected by the international community," foreign ministry director general Eden Bar Tal told reporters.
Palestinian health ministry says 2 killed in Israeli West Bank raids
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war
Ramallah: The Palestinian ministry of health said Israeli forces killed two people on Tuesday in separate raids in the northern West Bank, while the military said it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
One Palestinian was killed in the town of Tammun, and another in the village of Talouza, the Ramallah-based ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had transported the body of an 18-year-old from Tammun who was killed “as a result of shelling,” and that five other people were severely injured during the Israeli raid.
The body was taken to the Turkish Hospital in the nearby city of Tubas, where the director identified the deceased as Suleiman Qutaishat.
The Red Crescent said the other Palestinian was killed in an Israeli raid around the village of Talouza, near Nablus, and was 40 years old.
Residents in the area identified him as Jaafar Dababshe, who they said was shot dead by Israeli forces in front of his house.
The Israeli army when contacted did not offer details, but said on its Telegram channel: “An air force aircraft targeted an armed terrorist cell in the Tammun area” in the early hours of Tuesday.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 28 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
On Monday, three Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus and other vehicles in the West Bank, according to medics.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
International flights resume at Damascus airport
- Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule
Damascus: International flights resumed at Syria’s main airport in Damascus on Tuesday for the first time since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar Assad last month.
A Syrian Airlines flight bound for Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, took off at around 11:45 am, marking the first international commercial flight from the airport since December 8.
Syria to receive electricity-generating ships from Qatar and Turkiye
Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule, state news agency SANA quoted an official as saying on Tuesday.
Khaled Abu Dai, director general of the General Establishment for Electricity Transmission and Distribution, told SANA the ships would provide a total of 800 megawatts of electricity but did not say over what period.
“The extent of damage to the generation and transformation stations and electrical connection lines during the period of the former regime is very large, we are seeking to rehabilitate (them) in order to transmit energy,” Abu Dai said.
He did not say when Syria would receive the two ships.
The United States on Monday issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months after the end of Assad’s rule to try to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance.
The exemption allows some energy transactions and personal remittances to Syria until July 7. The action did not remove any sanctions.
Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available just two or three hours a day in most areas. The caretaker government says it aims within two months to provide electricity up to eight hours a day.
