Czech president lambasts Turkey as “ally of IS”
During a trip to the Karlovy Vary region on Tuesday, Czech President Milos Zeman claimed he considered Turkey a “de facto ally” of Daesh (IS), Sputnik reports, citing the CTK news agency.
“Why [do the Turks] attack the Kurds? Because they are de facto allies of the Islamic State [Daesh]”, the president said, answering a question from one of the meeting’s participants. “This means that it’s Turkey – despite the fact that it is a NATO member and seeks to join the European Union, which it is unlikely to be accepted – that has served as a mediator in logistics operations for the Islamic State [Daesh] supplies when [this terrorist organisation] occupied a significant part of Syria and Iraq. This, for example, included oil exports [from the territory seized by terrorists] and the like."
The Czech president has accused his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan of pursuing a policy of Islamising his country.
"This is no longer the secular state of [Kemal] Ataturk, but a state that professes Islamic ideology, and as follows logically, that it [the state] stands close to the Islamic radicals," Zeman alleged.
Erdogan has yet to comment on the accusations, but Ankara has repeatedly accused the West of backing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara views as a terrorist organisation, and sponsoring IS.