ISTANBUL: Turkey’s prime minister lashed out yesterday at the international response to the escalating crisis in Egypt, saying organisations including the UN and EU should be ashamed of their inaction.
“Let me say very clearly, the United Nations Security Council no longer has the right to look at itself in the mirror, it’s so ashamed, because it couldn’t condemn what’s happening in Egypt,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The same goes for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the European Union,” added the premier, who had cultivated close ties with Egypt’s ousted Islamist president Mohammed Mursi.
“Those who stay mute in the face of the latest developments in Egypt are approving the massacres by their silence and sinking in the blood that’s flowing in the country.”
Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) had forged a close alliance with Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood since he was elected in Egypt’s first free election in June 2012.
Thousands of Mursi supporters took to the streets in Turkey yesterday to denounce the “massacres” in Egypt. Some 4,000 people gathered at a mosque in Istanbul shouting “Down with (army chief Abdel Fattah) Al Sisi” and “Mursi in power!”
The protesters also implored the Muslim world to “help the Egyptian people who are being massacred.”
In the central Turkish city of Konya, nearly 10,000 people turned out in support of Mursi and his embattled loyalists, according to the Dogan news agency.
Turkey has hardened its tone towards Egypt’s new authorities, recalling its ambassador to Cairo over the violent crackdown Wednesday, prompting a tit-for-tat move by Egypt.
AFP
