Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday accused the West of aiding his foes to spread chaos in the Islamic world and urged unity among Muslim states to fend off their enemies.
From US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen to Kurdish rebels and the militant Islamic State group, all were being backed by the West, Erdogan said in an address to the Pakistani parliament.
“The West is now alongside Daesh. We see that the weapons in their hands are of Western origin..Beware, this is against the Islamic world,” Erdogan told members of parliament, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State terrorist organisation.
“We must fight them together,” he said, urging Muslims to put aside their differences and sectarianism in a speech lasting around half an hour.
Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said his country stood beside “charismatic” Erdogan in his fight to lead Turkey towards economic prosperity and political stability.
“We have seen the resilience of Turkish democracy under the charismatic leadership of President Erdogan,” Sharif said at a joint presser with the Turkish leader in Islamabad.
“We stand beside our brother in his efforts to make Turkish democracy stronger,” said Sharif, in an apparent reference to Erdogan’s ruthless crackdown against political opponents since a botched coup attempt to topple him earlier this year.
Erdogan arrived in Islamabad on a two-day state visit on Wednesday as Pakistani authorities ordered the expulsion of over 100 teachers from schools run by Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish leadership accuses of being behind the coup attempt.
Erdogan repeated at the press conference that the Gulen “terrorist organisation” was behind the coup attempt and his administration would not allow it to “derail Turkish democracy.”
Erdogan was scheduled to travel to the eastern city of Lahore in the evening, where the local administration has blocked the main road to facilitate his passage, causing problems for commuters and inviting a public outrage.
Both Sharif and Erdogan said their countries would sign a free trade agreement by the end of 2017 to enhance the volume of annual bilateral trade to $5bn.