President Erdoğan: Netanyahu, you are atrocious and cruel
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech at the Türkiye Diyanet Foundation’s 5th International Benevolence Awards Ceremony at Beştepe People’s Culture and Convention Center in Ankara.
“INCIDENTS IN OUR REGION LIFTED THE VEIL BEFORE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS”
“The destructive incidents that took place in our region in the last 7-8 years have lifted the veil before hundreds of millions of Muslims,” President Erdoğan said, noting that what happened in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Palestine helped Muslims separate good from evil, the oppressor from the oppressed and friend from foe.
“I regret to say that Western countries and Western institutions and organizations along with some Muslim states have indeed failed to pass the tests during this period,” President Erdoğan said.
“Neither some Muslim countries nor the West felt the pain of the people murdered with barrel bombs, ballistic missiles and chemical weapons in Syria. They did not hear the echoing cries of Yemeni children who became emaciated because of hunger. They did not show even slightest sympathy for the tragedies of Palestinian girls and disabled as well as elderly people massacred before cameras by Israeli soldiers. Well, Netanyahu is said to be very disturbed about the journalists in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s country. Netanyahu, you are atrocious and cruel. Aren’t you the one holding thousands of children, women and elderly people in prison because of the elections in Israel? Aren’t you the one oppressing them? If there is an oppressor in the world, it is you. You are beyond comparison, yet you speak without any shame. Aren’t those who entered our houses of prayer and the al-Aqsa Mosque with their boots on your soldiers and policemen? Aren’t those who beat up our men of religion your soldiers and policemen? How will you explain that? It is not like a few journalists in prison. It cannot be explained away. We will not be provoked because we are followers of a religion so universal that we will not fall for your games,” President Erdoğan said.
Recalling that 9 young people were executed by the rulings of the courts set up following the coup in Egypt, President Erdoğan criticized the EU countries for honoring el-Sisi’s invitation to Egypt.
Addressing EU countries’ administrators, President Erdoğan said: “If you had been sincere and true democrats, you would not have accepted an invitation by a country that has such an execution mechanism. There are many people who want to smooth things over between I and el-Sisi but I do not accept it. Why? Because I cannot sit at the same table with an anti-democratic man who condemned to prison Mursi, who had been elected with 52 percent of the popular vote, and his friends.”
JOURNALIST JAMAL KHASHOGGI’S MURDER
Regarding the journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at Saudi Arabia’s consulate general in Istanbul, President Erdoğan said that the countries, which raised their voiced against Khashoggi’s murder have been excluded by Saudi Arabia.
“Exclude us all you want. We have always spoken the truth. We have given the documents of the murder to anyone who asked for them. We have invited them over and let them listen to it. The U.S., Japan, France, the UK and the Saudi Arabia itself. We have told them that 15 people flew here on two planes. And those 15 people committed the murder at the consulate general in Istanbul,” President Erdoğan said, underscoring that they will pursue the incident for the perpetrators to be tried at international courts.
“THEY NEVER REALIZED THE THREAT AND THE DANGER UNTIL THE TERROR SCOURGE KNOCKED ON THEIR DOORS”
On the European approach toward the refugee problem, President Erdoğan said: “They never realized the threat and the danger until the terror scourge knocked on their doors.” “Neither toddler Aylan’s body that washed up ashore, nor the lives lost in the Mediterranean or the families destroyed by terrorist organizations were sufficient for the conscience of the West to wake up and take action. What is even worse is that they did not hesitate, concerning an issue such as terrorism, to discriminate like ‘good terrorist-bad terrorist’.”
“The Western countries deny Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi refugees compassion and mercy but they do not feel ashamed to show compassion and mercy to FETO’s traitors and the YPG’s murderers,” President Erdoğan said, noting that those who turn a blind eye to terrorist organizations are responsible for the YPG murderers seeking to form a terror corridor in the northern Syria.
“Those who put interests before principles are responsible for the youth being taken to the scaffold before the entire world. Those who put the law aside when it comes to Israel are responsible for the ongoing occupation in Palestine. It is the greedy colonialists who are responsible for the ongoing oppression in Arakan, the deepening poverty in Africa, and for the countries suffering from privation.”
“WE SHARE OUR TABLE WITH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS”
“Turkey has been the voice of mercy, compassion and benevolence during a period in which unjustness and double standards loom over the world like a nightmare. We not only have opened our doors to, but also have embraced our 3.6 million Syrian brothers and sisters who fled the conflict in their country. We have shared our table with our brothers and sisters while countries with so much more resources that us condemned them to refugee concentration camps. We have never questioned anyone’s ethnic origin, religion, culture, disposition or sect, who came to our borders,” President Erdoğan said.
“Along with Syria, we have extended a helping hand to everywhere that are dear to our hearts, from Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Palestine to Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Bosnia,” President Erdoğan underscored.
President Erdoğan concluded his speech by offering his gratitude to the awardees.
