Erdoğan: Turkey fights for justice as region demands it

Critics of Turkish foreign policy should stop accusing Ankara and instead oppose the conditions in the region that make it necessary for Turkey to champion peace and justice, said the nation's president on Thursday.

"They say, 'Why is Turkey involved in Syria, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia?" Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a group of ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's provincial heads at party headquarters in the capital Ankara.

But, he added, "If Turkey retreats, will Syria enjoy peace and freedom?...

"If Turkey turns its back to what is happening in Libya, will putschists hand over power to the legitimate government?"

"If all of these questions can be answered with a realistic and sincere 'yes', it would become necessary for us to review the policy we follow," said Erdoğan.

Erdoğan also demanded that the European Union abandon its double standards against Turkey.

Turkey has given support to Libya's legitimate government based in the capital Tripoli against the putschist warlord Khalifa Haftar, whose forces left behind mass graves in a recent retreat.

Since 2016 Turkey has also sent troops across its southern border into Syria to eliminate the threat to locals from the terrorist YPG/PKK and prevent them from forming a terrorist corridor next to Turkey.

And it has sent out drillships into the Eastern Mediterranean, asserting its right to the region's maritime resources against claims that small Greek islands next to Turkey's coasts deprive Turkey of almost any maritime jurisdiction in the region, despite no country having a longer Mediterranean coastline.

Critics in the EU, notably France, have opposed these efforts, while ignoring the terrorist threats near Turkey, illegal arms shipments into Libya fueling the insurgency, and Greek expansionist efforts to confine Turkey to its coasts using arguments that defy the law and logic.