AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Al Jazeera
Sunday

17 March 2019

1:26:26 PM
933510

New Zealand mosque attacks suspect targeted Turkey: Erdogan

Erdogan said the suspect had twice visited Turkey and warned Turks have no place in Europe. He said on Saturday that Turkish authorities were investigating his visits and his contacts.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed video footage at an election rally from the attack on two New Zealand mosques that killed 50 people and said the suspected gunman had made threats against Turkish Muslims.

Erdogan said the suspect had twice visited Turkey and warned Turks have no place in Europe. He said on Saturday that Turkish authorities were investigating his visits and his contacts.

Turkey's president showed a video - including extracts purportedly from the suspect's online manifesto and semi-blurred footage of the shooting - to the crowd via a large screen.

"We do not want to see a cross and crescent conflict again," Erdogan told the rally, referring to the conflict between Christians and Muslims.

He said the suspected attacker had said he wanted Turkish Muslims removed from Turkey's European territory.

"The wicked person who martyred 49 brothers and sisters is saying that we can stay on the Anatolian side, we cannot pass to the European side. Who do you think you are?" Erdogan said.

A senior Turkish security source said Tarrant entered Turkey twice in 2016 - for a week in March and for more than a month in September. Turkish authorities began investigating everything from hotel records to camera footage to try to ascertain the reason for his visits, the source told Reuters news agency.

On Friday, Erdogan said the suspected attacker had "targeted our country, our nation and myself", adding countries around the world, particularly in the West, needed to guard against the rise of Islamophobia.

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