The Center for Research on Globalization, a Canada-based research group that claims to be “committed to curbing the tide of globalisation and disarming the new world order,” has released an alleged interview with a Turkish nurse who claims to have worked in a clandestine Turkish hospital for wounded ISIS jihadists run by the daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The nurse, who declines to be named and is only identified as a 34-year-old Alawite Turk, claims to have worked for seven weeks at a secret hospital in the Turkish city of Şanlıurfa and seen Sümeyye Erdoğan running operations there. “Almost every day several khaki Turkish military trucks were bringing scores of severely injured, shaggy ISIS rebels to our secret hospital and we had to prepare the operating rooms and help doctors in the following procedures,” the nurse says.
She adds that she had to hide her Alawite Muslim faith in order to work at the hospital. “The fact is that I adhere to the Alawi faith and since Erdoğan took the helm of the country the system shows utter contempt for the Alawi minority,” she claims. She claims to have left the hospital upon being discovered as an Alawite.
Alawite Islam has its origins in the Shia branch of the faith, from which they originally split. As The Telegraph explains, they “believe prayers are not necessary and do not fast or perform pilgrimages.” Alawites have suffered tremendous population losses during the Syrian Civil War.
Iran’s state Press TV, which often calls upon Center for Research on Globalization, quickly picked up the news, describing Erdoğan as “one of the main supporters of the terrorist groups fighting against the government of Assad since 2011, with reports saying that Ankara actively trains and arms the militants in Syria and facilitates the safe passage of terrorists into the country.” Press TV also claims. “The Turkish government spearheaded efforts to transfer all possible mercenaries as far as Chinese Turkestan to newly converted Wahhabis in Buenos Aires,” without citing a source for this alleged information. Iran is one of Assad’s major backers, perhaps the only ONE in the region. Assad and his family are also Alawite Muslims.
The original source of the interview, the Center for Research on Globalization, describes itself on its about page as a “registered non-profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada,” proudly proclaiming it has “become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington’s ‘war on terrorism'” and broken stories on “US-NATO-Israel preparations to wage a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran.” It’s founder, Michel Chossudovsky, is a frequent commenter on both Press TV and Russia Today, the Kremlin propaganda outfit.
Turkish newspapers sympathetic to Erdoğan have called the nurse’s testimony “outrageous slander” and “the ultimate defamation.”
Despite the dubious sourcing, the claim that the Turkish government is helping Islamic State militants seems to have struck a nerve, as it is not the first. As far back as September 2014, reports surfaced of hospital staff near the Turkish border being forced to treat wounded Islamic State terrorists driven out of Syria to Turkey. In one such hospital in Mersin, a former nurse claimed, the men would appear in unmarked trucks. “We treat them, and they go on to decapitate people,” she said. “I am sick of treating wounded ISIL militants.” In March, a similar report surfaced that a high-ranking Islamic State terrorist received treatment at a Turkish hospital, giving Erdogan detractors more fodder for criticizing him as a crypto-ISIS supporter. Erdogan is publicly adamantly opposed to the Assad regime and has repeatedly called for its overthrow.
Following a bombing in Suruç, on the Turkish border with Syria, which killed dozens this week, the Turkish government is once again deflecting accusations that it has allowed ISIS to establish a base in the country. “Turkey has taken and will continue to take all necessary measures against ISIL. Measures on our border with Syria … will be increased,” said Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on Tuesday.
The Islamic State itself appears at least partially unconvinced that the Turkish government is its friend. In the second edition of its Turkish-language magazine Konstantiniyye, the terrorist group refers to the Islamist Turkish government as an “atheist gang” supportive of a “Kurdish state,” despite Erdogan’s vocal opposition to Kurdish political groups.