President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday the international community has failed to take a united resolute stance against terror.
Erdoğan’s remarks came in his address to the seventh United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Global Forum in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
“As the international community, we are still very far from reaching goals that constitute the foundational aim of the alliance,” said Erdoğan, adding that the international community also failed to overcome mentalities centered on prejudices, faiths, origins, and cultures.
“We also fail to show the common, resolved effort expected from us to fight radical movements and the terror fed by these movements,” the president said.
The UNAOC aims to promote harmony and improve understanding and cooperative relations among nations.
“No faith, religion, culture, or conscience approves of making an attempt on [someone’s] life. Islam especially is a religion whose name means peace. Does a religion whose meaning is peace allow terrorism?” asked Erdoğan.
“Terror has no place in our religion, and organizations such as Daesh which emerge in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam,” Erdoğan added.
The president said the world failed to take a united stance against the pain caused by “bomb after bomb that exploded in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, France, Pakistan, Turkey, and Belgium”.
“We failed to find a solution to political disputes, injustices, and inequalities which spawned an environment of violence,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan said the world should work for peace with a joint fight against sectarianism, racism, and terrorism.
“We must view members of all races as human beings and love them. Here, this constitutes the basis of peace in the world,” he said.
Turning to the Syrian war, which he said killed more than 500,000 people, Erdoğan stressed that Syria is undergoing a state terror. “A terrorist that kills his countrymen with barrel bombs, shells, and tanks is in charge,” Erdoğan said, referring to Syria’s Bashar Assad.
“These people have been dying in Syria for six years. Just in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, the number of people we [Turkey] rescued reached 100,000,” said Erdogan, adding that Turkey is hosting 3 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees and to date has spent over $10 billion helping them.
“Turkey’s spending for refugees has reached nearly $15 to 20 billion” Erdoğan said and added: “We will continue opening our doors for those escaping from bombs.”
Erdoğan reiterated that Turkey will not close its doors to refugees who he have fled bombs, “because we cannot leave those people to their death”.
