Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that he will not allow the opposition to lambast Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. He said it during a speech in Istanbul Friday, addressing opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who previously claimed that Russia interferes in the Turkish elections.
"You [Kilicdaroglu] have to excuse me, but I will not allow [you] to attack Putin. Because you don’t know, you won’t understand what it is to control the state," Erdogan said.
He also noted that Turkey’s relations with Russia are "better and just as developed and important as with the U.S."
"Our relations with Russia are currently not equal to our interaction with the U.S. If we look at our foreign trade volume with Russia, then it is larger than with the U.S. That’s the situation," Erdogan said.
