September 25, 2014, Thursday/ 18:04:10/ TODAY'S ZAMAN / ANKARA

A main opposition party deputy has asked a parliamentary question demanding to know if the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA) and the Yunus Emre Foundation ever offered financial support to any of the nongovernmental organizations in Kosovo that were recently closed down due to their links with terrorism.

“To which nongovernmental organizations in Kosovo have TİKA and the Yunus Emre Foundation offered [financial] support? Is AKEA [the Association for Culture, Education and School], which was shut down for supporting ISIL [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] and the al-Nusra Front, among the institutions that have been supported?” asked Turgut Dibek, a deputy of the Republican People's Party (CHP), on Thursday.

The Taraf daily reported the same day that most of the associations backed by TİKA and the Yunus Emre Foundation in Kosovo have been closed down for allegedly offering support to ISIL and the al-Nusra Front.

“One of the biggest of these [associations that have been closed down] is AKEA, which [Prime Minister] Ahmet Davutoğlu particularly likes,” the report said. “How much [financial] aid has AKEA been provided with so far?” Dibek demanded to know in his question.

According to the Taraf report, TİKA has offered substantial financial aid to AKEA, with which the Yunus Emre Institute, founded by the Yunus Emre Foundation, has also ties.

Kosovo police reportedly closed down 16 foundations and associations several days ago, in an operation conducted as part of a fight against radical Islamists. “Thirty imams who were claimed to be dispatching jihadists to Syria and Iraq were taken under custody. Most of them were arrested,” the Taraf report said.

Local media also reported that the foundations were closed down for their alleged links with terrorism.

According to the daily, Turkish police and military officials based in Kosovo cautioned Turkish officials about the risks of entertaining ties with radical Islamist groups.

Noting that AKEA was established in 2004 by Husamedin Abazi, who was trained in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the report said: “The leading figures linked with this association [AKEA] are Behar Avdiu, Nhari Toska, Bashkim Mehani, Ilir Xhoxhaj and Ilir Gashi. All of them are connected in some way or other to Turkey's [ruling] AKP [another way of referring to the AK Party] or affiliated organizations. Many observers have defined AKEA as the Kosovo branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the significant majority of imams who were arrested on charges of aiding and abetting ISIL are ‘volunteer members' of AKEA.”