President Erdoğan: COMCEC members should use national currencies in trade among themselves
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech at the 34th Ministerial Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
oting that 2018 marks the centenary of the First World War, President Erdoğan said: “Our region suffered the most from the war and its devastating effects. In order to resolve the problems directly related to the results of the First World War, we should first identify and verify well the resources of these problems.”
“WE SHOULD NOT FALL FOR THE PLOTS OF THOSE WHO WANT TO PLAY ON OUR DIFFERENCES”
Stating that we should use the centenary of the Great War to understand the era, President Erdoğan said: “The design made with the Great War lies behind many crises, blood and tears from Syria to Iraq, from Yemen to Palestine. It is the Palestinians who have suffered the most from this design, prepared in western capitals and carried into practice by shady characters like Lawrence. Our millions of Palestinian brothers and sisters have not only lost their lands but also suffered the worst injustices in the world. The policies, which do not conform to our region’s history, social and humane dynamics, caused sufferings, destruction and infighting not only in Palestine also in other places. With the WWI, the western countries exported the maladies that had been eating away at their systems for centuries.”
“We should no longer fall for the traps set by those who act on the logic that ‘A drop of oil is more valuable than a drop of blood’,” President Erdoğan warned. “We should not put up new walls, new frontiers in our hearts in this region whose borders were drawn with blood. We should not fall for the plots of those who want to play on our differences.”
“SECTARIAN FANATICISM IS THE MOST SERIOUS PROBLEM WEAKENING MUSLIM SOCIETIES FROM THE INSIDE”
“Racism and sectarianism are the primary maladies which took hostage the western societies for years, caused grave destruction and massacres in Europe, and injected into our region during the WWI,” President Erdoğan said, and further stated: “Sectarian fanaticism is the most serious problem weakening Muslim societies from the inside.”
President Erdoğan continued his speech as follows: “The fitnah, manifesting as a person’s prioritizing his disposition over his religion, even considering his sect as his religion, has no place in Islam. According to our faith, everyone who prays toward the same Kiblah, believes in the same God, Prophet and the same Holy Book is a brother. No one has the right to narrow the boundaries of brotherhood in Islam, drawn by our Lord and our Prophet. A believer must have a place in his heart not only for the Muslim Ummah of 1.7 billion people but also for all humanity.”
Calling on the COMCEC members to invest in and trade between each other, President Erdoğan said: “We should make the best use of the platforms and means at our disposal in order to resolve our issues on our own. In order to break the imperialist shackles on our arms, it is of utmost importance to use national currencies in trade among ourselves.”
