Ankara is working to strengthen alliances and reduce disputes both among itself and across the Islamic world, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday.
"We believe there is virtue in unity; we are working to strengthen alliances and reduce disagreements both among ourselves and across the Islamic world," Erdoğan said in his speech at the Mawlid al-Nabi Week program, which marked the birth of Prophet Muhammad, in Istanbul.
President Erdoğan said he hopes Muslims, "who shaped history and brought order to the world for centuries," will reunite "like bricks in a wall."
He underlined the importance of unity among Muslims, urging them to defend their rights and work together to build peace and security in the region.
"We are going through a historic struggle between good and evil, and God willing, good will prevail," Erdoğan added.
"Radical, occupying, genocidal ideology known as Zionism" not only threatens the peace of its neighbors but also targets everyone who defends human values, he warned.
Erdoğan said civilians paid a heavy price for the world's silence in the face of atrocities committed by Hitler and Pol Pot (former Cambodian dictator), warning that the same inaction was now being repeated in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
He said the world is failing to respond adequately to the Israeli "genocide network's lawless policies, which disregard rules, principles, values, and boundaries."
Erdoğan noted that Gaza had been turned into "the world's largest children's cemetery," adding that even kites flown by children were being seen as threats and blocked by Israel.
Pointing out the situation in Gaza people have to live in, Erdoğan said Palestinians are struggling to survive under severe conditions without access to basic necessities.
The Turkish president said Israel's "war-obsessed government" is using provocations to destabilize the entire region, starting with its neighbors.
Erdoğan also touched upon Lebanon, saying Israeli attacks had displaced 1.3 million people, killed more than 4,000—mostly women and children—and wounded over 12,000 others.
