Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that Foreign Minister Winston Peters would travel to Turkey to “confront” comments made by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the killing of 50 people at mosques in Christchurch.
Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire at the two mosques during Friday prayers.
Erdogan – who is seeking to drum up support for his Islamist-rooted AK Party in March 31 local elections – said on Tuesday that Turkey would make the suspected attacker pay if New Zealand did not.
The comments came at a campaign rally that included video footage of the shootings that the alleged gunman had broadcast on Facebook.
Ardern said Peters would seek urgent clarification.
“Our deputy prime minister will be confronting those comments in Turkey,” Ardern told reporters in Christchurch. “He is going there to set the record straight, face-to-face.”
Erdogan has referred to the mosque shootings several times during public gatherings in recent days.
Turkish Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said comments made by Erdogan on Monday during the commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign were taken out of context, adding he was responding to the attacker’s “manifesto”, which was posted online by the attacker and later taken down.
Read the article in The Age (Reuters).