Amid a fledgling Turkish bid last April to normalize ties with Egypt, a delegation of exiled Muslim Brotherhood leaders held talks in Ankara, seeking assurances that they would not be thrown under the bus while Ibrahim Mounir, the acting supreme guide of the Brotherhood, thanked Turkey for its support. It was the harbinger of a storm brewing within the movement, but the issue generated little debate at the time. Since then, however, further signs have emerged that the Brotherhood’s choice of Turkey as a safe haven was hardly auspicious for the movement.

The disastrous collapse of the movement since its overthrow in Egypt in 2013 has become even more dramatic amid a leadership row between its two main diasporas in Istanbul and London. And while the Istanbul wing led by Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood’s long-time secretary-general, and the Mounir-led London wing continue to bicker, the movement has seen the emergence of a third front: hundreds of jailed Brotherhood youths who accuse the exiled leaders in Istanbul and London of ignoring their plight in prison.

According to reports from Cairo, the jailed youths asked the grand imam of al-Azhar to mediate on their behalf in an Oct. 2 letter, calling for a formula of reconciliation with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s administration that would get them out of prison and save their future away from the struggles of their leaders. The jailed youths had written a similar letter in 2019, asking the government to give them a second chance. Their move is perceived not only as a show of remorse but also an intent to break with the Brotherhood and accept the legitimacy of the Sisi administration.

Ankara’s quest for rapprochement with Cairo seems to have fueled the infighting within the Brotherhood. Ahead of its first fence-mending meeting with Cairo in May, the Turkish government pressed three Istanbul-based Egyptian opposition channels to dim their criticism of Cairo. Several political commentators were silenced. Though Ankara fell short of extraditing convicted figures such as Hussein, Yahya Musa and Alaa al-Samahi, some exiles have allegedly moved to Britain, Malaysia and the United States. Amr Abdel Moneim, an expert on fundamentalist movements, estimates that some 8,000 Brotherhood members and about 3,000 activists have taken refuge in Turkey.