They influence the international media to impose their discourse and discredit regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia

Iran and Turkey coordinate their international media agenda

photo_camera AFP/ADEM ALTAN - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at a press conference

Turkey and Iran, two allies within the international concert, cooperate jointly in their media and propaganda strategy on the international level; without a doubt, a relevant tool to be able to manipulate public opinion and favour the image of both countries. 

As The Arab Weekly reports, several analysts indicate that Tehran and Ankara take advantage of the weaknesses of the foreign communication strategies of the Arab world, which are caused by the existing conflicts between the agendas of different nations. 

In this sense, last Wednesday, a telematic meeting took place between the spokesman of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamis Aksavi, and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Mousavi, according to the Turkish news agency Anadolu, which quoted diplomatic representatives of the Eurasian nation. 

Various sources indicated that Hamas Aksavi and Abbas Mousavi stressed the need to bring the excellent cooperation between the two countries to the field of media, adding that both parties agreed to strengthen bilateral ties in this regard and to establish mechanisms for this purpose. They also agreed on the need to hold regular consultative meetings on the matter. 

Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran share interests in a number of regional issues in the Middle East. One of them concerns the war in Yemen, where the Ayatollahs' regime is supporting Shiite Houthi rebels who are trying to undermine the internationally recognized government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, which is supported militarily by the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Iran's great regional rival and the leading representative of the Sunni branch of Islam, as opposed to the Shiite one sponsored by the Persian state. Both Turkey and Iran have links with the Yemeni party Al-Islah (Reform) dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, an entity considered terrorist by several Western countries and linked to Salafism (radical version of Islam). This side is oriented to increase the instability, in this case in the Yemeni country, and to foment the opposition to the Saudi kingdom. 

According to several experts, Turkey and Iran are developing a media campaign to accuse the Arab coalition of interfering and imposing its hegemony in Yemen in order to put the Yemeni nation at its service and take control of its ports and strategic sites. This perspective allows Tehran and Ankara to hide their true agendas, which consist of perpetuating the conditions of crisis and chaos that allow them to establish themselves in the Red Sea.

El presidente de Irán, Hasán Rohaní, en una fotografía de archivo de septiembre de 2019

The Muslim Brotherhood has another important mouthpiece, namely Qatar. The Gulf monarchy puts a lot of communication effort into giving voice to people linked to the Brotherhood. In addition, Ankara and Tehran have long used the Qatari media to develop a campaign against the Saudi kingdom and its interests in Yemen and elsewhere. But now the two countries have moved to establish satellite channels directly connected to them or under the control of one of their representatives, such as the Al-Mayadeen channel, owned by Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, which promotes Iran's regional expansionism. 

It is precisely Qatar that is the great financer of this whole campaign thanks to its financial muscle and resources. The Qatari country had a great rapprochement with Iran and Turkey as a result of the embargo imposed on it in 2017 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain (which accused the Gulf monarchy of cross-border terrorism), which was a great economic blow to Qatar, forcing it to seek close allies. 

Different media and analysts have pointed out in many occasions Iran's interference in the internal affairs of neighbouring states. In this line, the Iranian State uses the activity of the Quds Forces, international division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (elite body of the Iranian Army), to collaborate with similar Shiite groups in different countries in order to defend the Persian interests in these nations. This is the case of Lebanon with Hezbollah itself, Yemen with the aforementioned Houthis, Iraq with the People's Mobilization Forces, Palestine with Hamas or Syria with the guerrillas of Afghan origin of Liwa Fatemiyoun. 

Turkey has also established an Arabic-speaking channel composed of media professionals affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The favorite guests of this channel are obviously personalities linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab countries, with the intention of interfering in different nations.

In addition, Turkey has taken advantage of generous Qatari funds to invest in the expansion of numerous Arab satellite channels broadcasting from Turkey and to work towards achieving Ankara's political goals, as if they were Turkish channels.

In contrast, there are very few projects on the Arab side to try to target Iranian and Turkish audiences in their local languages. Most existing initiatives are based on personal proposals and lack official support, even though they are achieving exactly what the tools of the official Arab media have failed to achieve despite their enormous financial and technical resources.

El emir de Qatar, el jeque Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, habla durante una conferencia de prensa en Teherán, Irán, el 12 de enero de 2020

Bilateral coordination between Turkey and Iran to develop a joint media strategy reveals that the leaders of the two countries have established the conquest of Arab media and public opinion space as their top priority; while in Arab countries the media remain fragmented and self-centred, as The Arab Weekly recalls. 

All this can be explained by the fact that in recent times there has been a great rapprochement between Turkey and Iran. Mainly, because of the rapprochement that the regime of the ayatollahs had with the country presided over by Recep Tayyip Erdogan after receiving the political and economic sanctions imposed by the United States following the denunciation of non-compliance by the Iranian country with the agreements of the nuclear pact signed in 2015 (JCPOA) that limited the Iranian atomic program, above all in terms of weapons. 

This embargo, carried out in 2018 when Donald Trump's government left the JCPOA, mainly affected oil, a major source of Iranian funding, and was a major economic blow to Iran, which then approached Turkey and Qatar in search of international partners. 

These three nations are noted for fostering regional and global instability by their belligerent and interventionist positions in different neighbouring countries. Turkey is very active in this regard by participating in the wars in Libya and Syria, including through sending paid mercenaries linked to groups that have been linked in the past to jihadist terrorist organizations such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda, as has been pointed out by various media outlets and analysts. 

In this line, Hossam Zaki, undersecretary general of the League of Arab States, confirmed in an interview with Al-Ain News that "the threats posed by Turkey to Arab affairs are parallel to its dangers with Iranian interference". He added that "Ankara and Tehran have the same unfortunate method of cracking down on Arab countries that have lost their ability to unite and are suffering major crises, collaborating with influential parties on the domestic scene outside the control of the state, to achieve their regional purposes.

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