The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has come under attack after he was filmed telling
a crying 6-year-old girl that she would be honoured if she was killed
while fighting for Turkey.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was delivering a speech at his ruling party’s
congress in the city of Kahramanmaras on Saturday when he
spotted tearful six-year-old Amine Tiras. He asked for her to be brought
on stage and when she joined him, he kissed her on the cheeks to
comfort her.
He then said to the crowd: “She has the Turkish flag in her pocket.
If she becomes a martyr, God willing, this flag will be draped on her.”
Some people were appalled and took to Twitter to criticise the president.
One
user said it was the state’s duty to protect children, not to “kill”
them. Another said: “You don’t wish death for a child, you never say:
‘God willing.'”
Mr
Erdogan’s actions come as nationalist sentiment runs high over a
Turkish cross-border military offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters
that are affiliated with Kurdish rebels fighting inside Turkey.
In
recent weeks, children dressed in commando uniforms or reciting
nationalist poems have been making appearances at many events that he
attends.
Yasar Okutan, a former government minister, accused Mr
Erdogan in a television interview of using the youngsters to boost votes
in presidential and local elections in 2019, and questioned whether the
president would say the same for his own granddaughter. 