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.

Kalin, one of the few public intellectuals in Erdogan’s entourage, argued, “It should be clear by now that this recent crisis is more than about terrorism charges. It is also about how to deal with political Islamic movements, i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.” He might have added Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party to that list. The party, which shot to power 15 years ago, also has its roots in political Islam and sees the moves against Qatar as a threat to itself.

Ibrahim Karagul, the editor-in-chief of the pro-government Yeni Safak, perfectly captured this mindset in his daily column today. “When it is said that a new game is being staged for Syria, look immediately to Turkey. When the Qatar crisis erupts, when Iran’s ballistic missiles hit Arab soil, when Russia and America fall out in Syria, shift your gaze to Turkey,” he wrote.