AMMAN, Jordan — With King Abdullah II spending 25% of his time abroad in 2015, the Jordanian monarch has not lacked opportunities to meet foreign leaders. Three months into 2016, Abdullah has already visited Washington three times to discuss the war in Syria and the refugee crisis in Jordan, and he regularly meets regional leaders, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Despite Turkey’s critical role in the Middle East, especially in the ongoing Syrian war, Abdullah has not met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in more than three years, since March 6, 2013. What explains the cold relations between the Jordanian and Turkish leaders?
Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish member of parliament and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Al-Monitor, “The Jordanian royal family sees Erdogan and the AKP [Justice and Development Party] as first and foremost a Muslim Brotherhood movement. From the Jordanian point of view, this is a problematic relationship.”
Erdogan has repeatedly attacked Sisi, even calling him an illegitimate tyrant following the 2013 overthrow of Ankara ally President Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is one of Jordan’s strongest allies, so the Turkish president’s attacks on Sisi have strained ties with Abdullah. In addition, while Erdogan has strongly supported Hamas, another Brotherhood movement, Abdullah is close to Fatah, Hamas' Palestinian rival. Jordanian leaders regularly meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads Fatah. Erdogan’s support for the Brotherhood not only strikes an ideological nerve in Amman’s foreign policy but also irritates the Jordanian regime domestically.
“The Brotherhood in Jordan represents one of the opposition centers to the king’s power, and Erdogan is one of the sponsors of the Brotherhood in the region, both intellectually and politically,” Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor. Jordan has adopted a series of restrictive measures against the local Muslim Brotherhood over the past year. Of note, on March 29 the government barred the organization from holding internal elections and last year canceled a 70th anniversary rally.
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