Islamic world against the United States: Turkey and Iran unite around Palestine
After protests in Palestine — a big Convention of Muslim leaders in Istanbul. Members of the Organization of Islamic cooperation, which includes 57 countries that officially condemned the decision of the President of the United States Donald trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Arab politicians, representatives of Turkey, Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia called on the world to harshness in relations with the Jewish state to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. Emerging on the sidelines of the summit, the Alliance can be called a Sunni-Shiite as it includes supporters of the two main branches of Islam. Advantage of rapidly developing events extracted Tehran and Ankara, whose relations with the United States experiencing long-term decline. The decision of trump on the issue of Jerusalem allows opponents of the Americans to assert his leadership in the Muslim world.
"Erdogan is confident that the US wanted to overthrow him"
Despite the fact that since December 6, when the United States agreed to consider the Holy city the Israeli capital last week, the outrage in the middle East does not abate. In Israel, mass protests ended the "day of anger", launched on 8 December. Numerous demonstrations of dissent took place in the Islamic world (Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia) and beyond — in France and Germany. In Jordan, the protests were held under the controversial Israel the slogan "Jerusalem is Arab." In Berlin burned the flag of the Jewish state.
In the emotional atmosphere of General indignation of the Muslims Turkish President Erdogan took on the role of defender of Jerusalem. In recent days, the head of the only Muslim country in NATO increasingly acts with anti-American statements, frightening his official allies.
"Erdogan understands that the USA is behind the coup attempt nearly costing him his power in the summer of 2016. Negatively on the bilateral relations influenced the resignation in February of former US presidential Advisor for national security Michael Flynn, close to the Turks. Since then, relations between Washington and Ankara have deteriorated rapidly", — explained the situation in an interview with RIA Novosti, the political scientist, the Deputy Director of the Center for political technologies, Alexei Makarkin.
During the summit in Jerusalem in Istanbul, Erdogan made an unexpected political initiative announced the formation of a large "new Alliance" of countries to protect the rights of Palestinians in the possession of the Holy city. Such a Union could become a reality only in the case of easing the age-old Sunni-Shiite contradictions that afflict the Islamic world. In Ankara sympathetic look at such a perspective, because the guest of honor at the Istanbul meeting called for the Shiite President of Iran Hassan Rouhani.
Saudi Arabia's embarrassed protests
Emotional disturbance, who is supremely today the Islamic world, strengthen some countries of the region and leads though to the time, the weakening of the others. Among the losers is Saudi Arabia whose authorities are betting on a continuation of the Sunni-Shiite conflict. The unification of all Muslims against the US and Israel is seen by Riyadh an unlikely prospect.
For this reason, the Saudi Kingdom unexpectedly downgraded its representation at the OIC conference, sending in Istanbul only one of the Cabinet Ministers. A symbolic step against the background of the accusations came from the mouth of the foreign Minister of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said about the "timidity" of some of the Arab countries in the ensuing crisis.
In conversation with RIA Novosti Director of the center for the study of the Middle East and Central Asia semen Bagdasarov has linked moderate attitude of Saudi Arabia towards the Palestinian issue with the actual coming to power in the Kingdom of the crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. "This young politician is committed to the modernization of the country, the old anti-Palestinian direction he is not interested. Enemy he believes Iran and is ready to focus all my energy on the confrontation only to him", — the expert believes. Earlier media reported that the Saudi heir to the throne allegedly demanded from the Palestinian movement to recognize the capital instead of Jerusalem to any other city. The cash-strapped Palestinian authority depends, including from the influx of Saudi money.
"Arab politicians do not want to end up like Sadat"