Turkish PM Erdoğan rebuffs US for strong reaction to his Israel comments

RİZE - Anadolu Agency

Turkihs Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is greeted with fireworks upon his arrival to his hometown Rize in the late hours of Aug. 23. He spoke during a mass ceremony event on Aug. 24 in front of AKP supporters. Erdoğan will stay in the province until Aug. 26. DHA photo

The United States should not have responded to his comments regarding Israel’s role on the military takeover in Egypt this week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Aug. 24, adding that he had been "saddened" by the White House’s reaction.
 
Mentioning once again a video from a seminar in mid-2011 involving Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, in which the latter said that “democracy is more than the ballot-box,” Erdoğan said that he was asking who those who supported such statements were.
 
“When I said that, an answer came from the White House. I was saddened. Because the interlocutor [of the comments] was not the White House. I did not mean the United States, but Israel,” Erdoğan told the crowd during a mass opening ceremony in his hometown Rize.
 
“What is it to the White House that it should respond. It should not have mentioned it, it should not had reacted like this. As two members of NATO, that one ally shows this kind of approach to the other is not appropriate,” Erdoğan said.
 
White House Spokesman Josh Earnest had said on Aug. 21 that Erdoğan’s comments on Israel being behind the Egyptian military takeover were “offensive, unsubstantiated and wrong.”
 
Following Earnest’s remarks, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had held talks with officials in Washington and said that Turkey did not wish to be criticized by the U.S. for statements regarding a third country.
 
Erdoğan said that the White House’s reaction showed the “doubled standard of the world.”
 
UN Security Council is not ‘assurance of peace’
 
The Turkish Prime Minister, who has been floating the idea of an alternative United Nations during a TV interview on Aug. 22, has charged once again against the Security Council for its failure to act on Syria, while lashing out at criticism of Turkey’s interest in Syria and Egypt.
 
“So the Security Council, where are you? What is your purpose? Why were you established? You are not the assurance of peace right now,” Erdoğan said, repeating the slogan of a new campaign “the world is bigger than five,” in reference to the permanent members of the Security Council.
 
“Two countries are determining the world’s fate,” he said in reference to China and Russia.
 
Erdoğan said that Turkey had a “historical responsibility” towards Egyptians and Syrians who fought together with Turks in the Ottoman Army.
 
“We have a duty of loyalty towards Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Those who say ‘why do we care’ would betray its history, its civilization, its ancestors and martyrs,” he said.
 
The prime minister also slammed the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for calling him a “dictator.” He repeated that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had trampled on “all sorts of nationalism,” as he said months ago in Mardin before he was defied by CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to repeat the same statements in his hometown of Rize.
 
“Kılıçdaroğlu, we [the AKP] say the same thing in the whole country. We are not of those who say one thing in the evening and some other thing the next morning,” he said.
 
Erdoğan spent the night in his family home in Rize’s Güneysu district. He is due to carry out several scheduled programs until Monday Aug. 26, returning to Ankara from Trabzon the next day.