Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that he will not allow the opposition to lambast Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. He said it during a speech in Istanbul Friday, addressing opposition leader Kemal Kılıchdaroğlu, who previously claimed that Russia interferes in the Turkish elections.
"You [Kılıchdaroğlu] have to excuse me, but I will not allow [you] to attack Putin. Because you don’t know, you won’t understand what it is to control the state," Erdogan said, according to TRT.
He also noted that Turkey’s relations with Russia are "better and just as developed and important as with the US."
"Our relations with Russia are currently not equal to our interaction with the US. If we look at our foreign trade volume with Russia, then it is larger than with the US. That’s the situation," Erdogan said.
On Thursday, Kılıchdaroğlu posted a tweet in Russian, calling on Moscow not to interfere in the upcoming May 14 election. He claimed that Russia is behind some "montages, conspiracies and recordings," which were discovered in Turkey earlier. The politician did not specify what he referred to exactly. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov decisively debunked rumors that Moscow may interfere in the Turkish elections, underscoring that only liars spread rumors like this.
Erdogan said he has never wanted to break relations with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, because of the United States’ policy toward Russia.
"I have never stopped contacts with Putin because, say, America has a negative attitude to Russia. On the contrary, I continued relations with him as actively as possible. Our trade and economic relations with Russia are much stronger than those we have with America. And we have prospects to develop them further," he said in an interview with local television channel.
Erdogan has also called “shameful” the non-inclusion of Azerbaijan “in the project of reviving the historical Silk Road” of the presidential candidate in the upcoming May 14 elections and leader of the Republican People’s Party Kemal Kılıchdaroğlu.
“Mr. Kemal again intends to disgrace our nation by ignoring our Azerbaijani brothers,” he said.
Kılıchdaroğlu also presented the project implementation map, according to which the planned road does not pass through the so-called ‘Zangezur Corridor’, it bypasses Azerbaijan and passes through Iran.
Erdogan expressed concern that Kılıçdaroğlu intends to embarrass Turkey by ignoring Azerbaijan. According to him, the Turkish people will not accept any project that may harm the brotherhood of Baku and Ankara.
