Turkey’s top cleric delivers Friday sermon, calls for unity

ANKARA

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The country’s top cleric took the initiative to deliver Friday’s sermon on Sept. 11, in a bid to urge the people of Turkey not to be trapped by ethic divides amid rising conflict between security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“Due to crimes that murder gangs commit which do not recognize any humanitarian and moral values, we should not attempt to incriminate our innocent siblings with whom we turn to the same qibla, with whom we are ummah of the same prophet and with whom we have shared our joy, grief, presence and absence,” Mehmet Görmez, the president of the Directorate General of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), said in a sermon he delivered at Kocatepe Mosque in the capital Ankara.

Görmez’s sermon was read out across the entire country. 

“We should not forget that we would only be serving the treacherous goals of murder gangs when we fall out with each other on the streets by being taken with provocations,” Görmez said, urging people to listen to their common sense instead of their feelings of anger in these kinds of situations.

Turkey has seen spiraling violence since July, with hundreds reported killed in the renewed conflict between Turkish security forces and the PKK, including more than a hundred soldiers and police officers. The renewed fighting shattered a peace process that was launched in 2012.

“The grievances that we have been suffering should not lead to bigger grievances. We should not delight our enemies,” Görmez said.