New Delhi: Lashing out for the second time in three days at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s extremely controversial remarks supporting Islamabad on the Kashmir issue while on a visit to Pakistan recently, India summoned the Turkish envoy in New Delhi on Monday and issued a “strong demarche”, saying the remarks are “one more example of a pattern of Turkey interfering in the internal affairs of other countries”which “India finds completely unacceptable”. New Delhi also said the Turkish President’s “rem-arks reflect neither an understanding of history nor of the conduct of diplomacy” and that these “distort events of the past to advance a narrow minded view of the present”. New Delhi also “rejected the repeated attempts by Turkey to justify the cross border terrorism practiced so blatantly by Pakistan”, adding that “these developments have strong implications for our bilateral relationship”.
President Erdogan along with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad have been extremely critical of India in the past few months while supporting Pakistan, after India revoked Article 370 and divided the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state into two Union Territories in August last year.
In apparent response, India had also last year said it was “deeply concerned at the unilateral military offensive by Turkey in north-east Syria”, asking “Turkey to exercise restraint and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria”, and adding that “Turkey’s actions can undermine stability in the region and the fight against terrorism” which “has the potential for causing humanitarian and civilian distress”.
In his extremely controversial recent remarks supporting the Pakistani position on Kashmir, President Erdogan had compared Kashmir to the battle of Gallipoli during World War I that the Turks had fought back then.
“We have never forgotten and will never forget the help, which the Pakistani people extended, by sharing their own bread during our War of Independence. And now, Kashmir is and will be the same for us. It was Canakkale (Gallipoli) yesterday and it is Kashmir today, [there is] no difference,” President Erdogan was quoted by the Turkish media as having told a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament during his official visit to the country.
