Erdogan refused to sit at the same table with Al-Sisi

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed that he refused to attend a meeting with Egyptian President and coup leader Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last month, PLS48 news website reported on Monday.

During a speech at a Turkish university to mark the new Islamic year, Erdogan also criticised the double standards of the Western media for not giving equal attention to the same issues in different places, for example the coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the fighting in Kobani, northern Syria.

The Turkish president said that last month he was invited to a meeting with other presidents in New York, including Al-Sisi, but he refused the invitation. “Siting at the table with Al-Sisi gives him legitimacy,” PLS48 quoted him as saying. “And I am not a leader losing legitimacy”.

Erdogan then criticised the double standards of the Western media regarding Turkey, Gaza and Egypt in comparison with its coverage of the fighting in Kobani.

He complained that, “in Gaza, we saw 16 journalists killed in two months and never heard any word from the Western media. And yet if this happened in Turkey, [the Western media] would have turned things up-side down.”

Erdogan also criticised the West’s mobilisation for Kobani. “The Islamic State (ISIS) controls half of Iraq,” he noted, “but we did not see any media coverage of that.” He asked: “Why for Kobani? What is the difference between it and the other places?”

The Turkish president said that his country is offering all kinds of help to Kobani; “however, some claim that we support ISIS.” He reiterated that his country had hosted 200,000 Kurds from Kobani, in addition to 1.6 million Syrian refugees, while Europe hosted only 130,000 Syrian refugees.

Regarding the Egyptian issue, Erdogan argued that the Western media has not adequately covered the military coup against elected President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt. “That is because Morsi is not from their world,” he said.