Muslim Brotherhood. Despite this reputation, Altikriti states that he is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Anas Altikriti's father Osama Tawfiq al-Tikriti currently heads the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Islamist political party in Iraq which evolved from the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Al-Tikriti: "'I was asked at a recent meeting with some of Washington’s wheelers and dealers about what the American government should do with the Islamic movements gaining prominence and claiming the limelight across the Arab world, I answered simply: support them … unless we encourage them and offer them an incentive, their own crop of hard-liners will have been proven right". This has been interpreted as a new iteration of Altikriti's previous lobbying strategy, which has sought to persuade Western governments that they should fund Brotherhood groups as moderate alternatives to al-Qaeda. Altikriti has been accused of using the Arab Spring as a new opportunity to leverage the Muslim Brotherhood into positions of power and influence, and perhaps even to acquire new funds from Western sources, through arguing that Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood parties can undermine and moderate more extremist Islamist elements. The Cordoba Foundation and British Muslim Initiative (BMI) have been criticized by Andrew Gilligan in The Telegraph for working "closely with other British extremist groups which seek the creation of an Islamic dictatorship, or caliphate, in Europe", referring to the Emirates Centre for Human Rights. Gilligan stated that Altikriti has close ties to Hamas leadership and co-founded BMI with a senior commander in Hamas, Mohammed Sawalha, and a Hamas "special envoy", Azzam Tamimi. A spokesperson from the Emirates Centre for Human Rights stated that "Anas Altikriti helped set up the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, but now has nothing to do with it." Altikriti has stated that "the Brotherhood supports Hamas. I believe that if you are occupied you need to fight back." The UK government considers the military wing but not the political wing of Hamas to be a terrorist organization. In late 2014 The Cordoba Foundation was listed as a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates, along with the more than 75 various other international Muslim organisations which operate in a variety of fields. The British government opened its own enquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood. After a long delay, the report concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood should not be classified as a terrorist organization in the UK. Closure