Daesh a 'dagger in chest of Muslims': Erdogan

ISTANBUL (AA) - Daesh is a “dagger stabbed into the chest of Muslims”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday following a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia blamed on the terror group.

Speaking at an event in Istanbul to mark the end of Ramadan, Erdogan highlighted to price paid in Muslim blood in terror attacks committed by groups such as Daesh and the PKK.

“This organization called Daesh is a dagger stabbed into the chest of Muslims,” he said. “Whoever supports this organization through sectarian fanaticism or any other motive becomes a partner in the same sin.”

On Monday, suicide bombers targeted Medina, Qatif and Jeddah. In Medina, four security guards were killed near the Prophet’s Mosque, which is the burial place of the Prophet Muhammad.

A day earlier more than 200 were killed in a bombing in Shia Muslim district of Baghdad and last week 45 people were killed when three terrorists attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

Erdogan also promised to go ahead with a plan to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees. He first mentioned the proposal on July 2, when it was greeted with protests on social media.

“There are also qualified people among them, people who have a career,” he said. “Let us not take them, [and then] should they go to England, Canada or any other place? ... we do not discriminate.”

The president cited the example of Meskhetian Turks who escaped the conflict in eastern Ukraine to settle in Turkey’s eastern province of Erzincan.