President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Aug. 28 called for stronger cooperation across the Muslim world, saying Muslims could not rely on others to defend their rights or secure peace in the region.
“As Muslims, we will get nowhere by placing our hopes in others,” Erdoğan said at a Mawlid al-Nabi Week event at Istanbul’s Haliç Congress Center.
“We must be strong and capable of deterrence, defend our rights together and build peace and security in our region together.”
Erdoğan said Türkiye was working to strengthen alliances and reduce disputes both domestically and across the Islamic world.
He also accused the Israeli government of seeking to destabilize the region and criticized international institutions for failing to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.
Erdoğan said millions of Palestinians were struggling to survive without basic necessities, describing Gaza as “the world’s largest graveyard of children.”
Israeli attacks had displaced 1.3 million people in Lebanon and killed more than 4,000, he said. More than 12,000 had been wounded, most of them women and children.
“Neither global institutions nor the international community can demonstrate a strong will to prevent the massacres,” Erdoğan said.
“We believe there is virtue in unity,” he added.
“We are working to strengthen alliances and reduce disagreements both among ourselves and across the Islamic world.”
