Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Monday said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the only hope for Muslims, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“I have met with American Muslim civil society representatives here. I have once again understood that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the only hope for the Ummah [Muslims],” Çavuşoğlu said at a gathering organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at Turkey’s Diyanet Center of America in Lanham, Maryland, just outside of Washington.
“We are the strongest country insisting that the global order must change. We are responsible for the Ummah. Who will defend the al-Quds [Jerusalem] cause if we are silent? Some Muslim countries cannot speak out due to their fears.”
Claiming that snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24 are the most important ever held in Turkey, Çavuşoğlu said: “The June 24 elections will not only decide [the leader of Turkey in] 2023 [the centennial of the Republic of Turkey], but will also decide the country’s next two centuries.”
Çavuşoğlu is in Washington, D.C., to meet with his American counterpart, Mike Pompeo, on Monday.