Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the UN Security Council no longer works to ensure global security but instead is an arena for its five permanent member states to engage in strategic confrontations. The Turkish president Erdogan has called for greater multilateralism at the world stage. "The world is bigger than five, and a fairer world is possible," he said, referring to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Erdogan Erdogan also said that Turkey will step up peace efforts in Ukraine. "Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, we have been endeavoring to keep both our Russian and Ukrainian friends around the table with the thesis that war will have no winners and peace will have no losers." "We will step up our efforts to end the war through diplomacy and dialogue on the basis of Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity." Turkiye considers recent events in Northern Cyprus, where UN peacekeepers tried to block the building of a vital connecting road, "a manifestation of this empty institutional structure that provides neither justice nor trust," he said. "We must immediately restructure institutions under the UN roof responsible for ensuring world peace, security, and welfare," Erdogan said. "We must build a global governance architecture that is capable of representing all origins, beliefs and cultures in the world," he added. On Turkiye's relations with the European Union, Erdogan said he expects EU to fulfill "its long-neglected obligations towards our country". "The increasingly complex nature of regional and global challenges indicates that there is a need, now more than ever, to advance Turkish- European Union relations on a healthy basis," he said. "We expect the European Union to swiftly start fulfilling its long-neglected obligations towards our country," said the president. "Especially the ambivalent attitudes towards Turkiye have to come to an end," he added. "Racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, which spread like a virus especially in developed countries, have reached intolerable levels," Erdogan said. Signs of xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia spiraling into a new crisis have reached alarming proportions in the last year, he said. Stating that hate speech, polarization, and discrimination against innocent people hurt the public conscience in all corners of the world, the Turkish leader lamented that populist politicians in many countries continue to play with fire by encouraging these dangerous trends. "The mentality which encourages heinous attacks against the holy Quran in Europe by allowing them under the guise of freedom of expression is in fact darkening its own future," said the president. On the now-stalled Middle East peace process, Erdogan also said permanent peace in the Middle East is only possible through a lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "We will continue to support the Palestinian people and state in their struggle for their legitimate rights on the basis of international law," the Turkish president said. — Agencies
