Ankara voices cautious support as Turkish troops arrive in Doha

One of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foreign policy advisers has offered a hearty defense of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian group Hamas, signaling Turkey’s continued support for militant Sunni movements and its top regional ally Qatar even as it seeks to position itself as a neutral arbiter in the ongoing Gulf crisis.

Ibrahim Kalin used his column in the pro-government daily Sabah to decry what he called the lack of concrete evidence proving that Qatar was supporting terrorism. He also called on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to heed Qatar’s demands to lift a three-week blockade as a prerequisite for negotiations. “The measures taken against Qatar are indeed disproportionate and do not contribute to the resolution of the crisis,” he wrote. Both Turkey and Qatar refuse to class the Egypt-rooted Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as terrorists.