ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Officials of the Islamic Union of Kurdistan (Yakgirtu) distanced themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood organization, soon after it was listed as a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government last week.
“We do not have any links with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Muhammad Rauf, head of the leadership council of the Islamic Union, told Rudaw. “We do not have any organizational links with them. We are a Kurdish party.”
Following the ouster last summer of president Mohammed Morsi by the Egyptian military, his Muslim Brotherhood organization has also been banned and many of its members subsequently jailed. On December 26, the Egyptian government listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
As he rejected claims that his party was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, Rauf condemned Egypt’s act of branding it as a terrorist organization.
“If the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization then it means there are no moderate Muslims in the world,” said Rauf, referring to the “moderate politics” of his group.
The Kurdistan Islamic union, founded in 1994, is locally seen as a branch of -- or a party with close links to -- the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Other members of the Islamic union have previously stated that they are inspired by some of the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hiwa Mirza Sabir, a senior official of the group, had previously told Rudaw that the Islamic Union “is an extension of the school of the Muslim Brotherhood,” and that “the Muslim Brotherhood is the mother of most of the ideas on which the Islamic Union builds itself.”
With pressure mounting on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt -- and perhaps other countries in the region -- it is understandable that the Islamic Union of Kurdistan wants to distance itself from the banned group.
In an article published in Rudaw’s Kurdish newspaper two years ago, Sabir said: “The Islamic Union’s Muslim Brotherhood identity isn't a secret. Apart from geographical differences, there are no other differences between the Islamic Union and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
In the September elections, the Islamic Union won eight seats in the Kurdish parliament and its leaders are engaged in negotiations to join the next cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Hassan Yasin, an Erbil-based expert on Islamic organizations, believes that the Union and the Muslim Brotherhood are linked. “The Muslim Brotherhood usually works inside the country (Egypt), while it maintains contact with its international branches,” he explained.
However, said Yasin, it is unlikely that Egypt’s decision would affect the Kurdish Islamic Union.
“They are part of the political process in Kurdistan, and they haven’t carried out any extremist activity that would accuse them of terrorism,” he said.
At a meeting in 1995, Islamic Union founder Salahdin Bahaddin told party members: “The Muslim Brotherhood is the best school in which one can be educated. We our proud to be graduates of the Muslim Brotherhood school.”
In its 20-year-history the Kurdish group has often pointed out its peaceful approach and distanced itself from the Islamic league (Komal) and the Islamic Movement (IMK), two parties that at one point were strongly armed and actively pursued jihad.
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