Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday criticized Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz for his government’s decision to shut down seven mosques and expel 60 imams, warning of a “crusader-crescent war” and of retaliation.
“I am afraid that the steps taken by the Austrian prime minister would bring the world closer to a crusader-crescent war,” said Erdoğan during a fast-breaking meal organized in İstanbul, according to a report by Hurriyet Daily News. He added that Turkey would also “respond” in due course to the decision to expel imams.
‘’Will we watch idly as you do this? They say that our clerics there will be deported from Austria. If you do this, do you think we’ll idly stand by? We will be doing something, too,’’ Erdoğan added.
Erdoğan’s remarks came after the measures announced by Kurz on Friday to expel several foreign-funded imams including imams sent by political Islamist Erdoğan regime and shut seven mosques in a crackdown on “political Islam.”
Kurz said that the investigation on several mosques and associations conducted by the Ministry of Interior and Office of Religious Affairs had been concluded and that the activities of seven mosques were found to be forbidden, one of them belonging to the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Associations (ATİB).
The Austrian chancellor added that the imams would be deported on grounds of being foreign funded. “Parallel societies, political Islam and radicalization have no place in our country,” Kurz said.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also slammed the Austria’s decision to close the mosques. “It is quite wrong. It neither suits universal legal rules nor the EU’s values nor the migrants’ law,” Yıldırım said on Friday.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing the decision. “We condemn Austrian politicians, especially Chancellor Kurz, for trying to achieve political interest from these alarming developments, rather than fighting against racism, Islam and xenophobia and the rise of the extreme right,” said the ministry on June 8.
Ties between Ankara and a number of European countries were hit in 2017 ahead of the controversial April 2017 referendum on shifting to an executive presidential system, with many Turkish politicians not permitted to hold pre-scheduled meetings.
Ahead of that referendum, Turkish ministers sought to drum up support in countries with large Turkish communities, like the Netherlands and Germany. Those countries imposed bans on security grounds that angered Istanbul, and Erdoğan and some of his allies at the time compared the German government to “Nazis.”
Several hundred thousand people in Austria are Turkish or of Turkish origin. In 2015 when Kurz was Austria’s minister for Europe, integration and foreign affairs he backed Austria’s “law on Islam,” legislation that, among other things, banned the foreign funding of mosques and imams in Austria. The law, which eventually passed through parliament, was intended to develop an Islam of “European character,” according to Kurz.
The post Turkey’s Erdoğan talks on ‘crusader-crescent war’ after Austria’s move on mosques appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkeys-erdogan-talks-on-crusader-crescent-war-after-austrias-move-on-mosques/
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