Turkish leader slams UN Security Council
UNITED NATIONS — The president of Turkey slammed the U.N. Security Council's inaction on some of the world's most pressing issues, accusing its members of rendering the world body ineffective.
In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.N. has repeatedly failed to act, citing the Syrian civil war which has killed more than 200,000 people and this summer's Gaza War in which more than 2,000 people died.
He also criticized the U.N. for what he termed the legitimization of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi who spoke from the same podium shortly before.
He said the democratically elected President of Egypt, Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, was overthrown by a coup, and the U.N. chose to legitimize the person who conducted this coup — a reference to El-Sissi.
"We should respect the choice of the people in the ballot box. If we want to support coups...then why does the United Nations exist?" he said.
Turkey had forged a close alliance with Morsi and strongly criticized the military coup in Egypt which ousted his government. He has described el-Sissi as a "tyrant," prompting Egypt's Foreign Ministry to summon the Turkish charge d'affaires.
Erdogan said the U.N. as a world body should be more "brave" in addressing world problems.
"The world is bigger than the five," he said of the five permanent Security Council members, accusing them of rendering the U.N. ineffective.
Erdogan has said he would offer military help but has been vague about exactly how he intends to answer the American call to join Washington and a number of Arab states as they continue attacks on the Islamic State group that has taken over wide swaths of Syria and Iraq in a brutal assault and a bid to establish what the radical group calls a Islamic Caliphate.
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