We know which states supply arms to terror: Erdoğan

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused states with powerful arms industries of providing weapons to terror groups while criticizing Western countries of adopting a “hypocritical approach” in their responses to attacks in different parts of the world. 

“We always say this; the biggest problem in the world today is not terror itself. The biggest problem of the world today is the hypocritical, two-faced, insincere attitude in the face of terror organizations,” Erdoğan said at the third Islamic Conference of Ministers Responsible for Water meeting in Istanbul on May 17. This hypocritical manner is the “biggest support” that can be offered to terrorist groups, he added. 

Erdoğan also alleged that some countries with powerful arms industries knowingly sell arms to terrorist groups.

“States which exercise control over the world’s arms industry give their weapons to terrorists. I challenge them to deny this. By now, we all know which countries supply arms to which terror groups,” he said.

“Due to the nature of terrorism,” these countries will inevitably be hit by the same militant organizations they are currently supporting, Erdoğan said.

“You can be sure that tomorrow, the same weapons will be used against the countries which provided them,” he said, while criticizing Western hesitance in condemning attacks targeting Turkish provinces. 

“We issued numerous warnings to countries operating in the region [Syria] to be cautious against arms and ammunition support to terror groups active in Syria. Right now, some of those weapons are used against our country,” he said, referring to the long-standing thorny issue between Turkey and the United States over the latter’s refusal to designate the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as terror organizations despite Turkish insistence that both are offshoots of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 

To support his point, the president mentioned the May 12 attack in the Tanışık village of southeastern Diyarbakır province which was rocked by a massive explosion said to have been caused by PKK militants loading explosives onto a truck, killing 16 civilians while wounding 23 others.

“No one, especially Western states where the separatist terror organization [PKK] is operating freely under various names, raised their voices against this deplorable incident,” he said, stressing there should have been widespread reaction to a terror attack of this scale.

“[There are reactions when bombs explode] in Paris, Brussels but not in Lahore, Ankara, Istanbul and Diyarbakır. This is why we are hurt,” he added.