Pakistani premier hails Erdogan’s stance on NZ attacks

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan's prime minister on Friday hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad for taking a quick and clear stand on deadly terror attacks on mosques in New Zealand.

In a live televised joint news conference with his Malaysian counterpart in capital Islamabad, Imran Khan said there were only a few Muslim leaders who took stand on issues affecting Muslims across the world.

Last Friday, at least 50 Muslims were killed and as many injured when a terrorist -- identified as 28-year-old Australian-born Brenton Tarrant -- entered the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch and shot worshippers in cold blood, including four children younger than 18.

"Unfortunately, a very few Muslim leaders do take stands on the issues that affect the other Muslim world. One of them is Erdogan and the other is Mahathir Mohamad", Khan said.

He was referring to Turkey's timely steps, including an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Istanbul on Friday.

"We have seen transformation of Turkey and development of its economy under his (Erdogan) leadership", the prime minister went on to say.

Khan also appreciated Mahathir's war against corruption and vowed to learn from Malaysia's anti-corruption drive.

Terming the rising Islamophobia in the West as the reason behind the Christchurch terror attacks, the prime minister lamented that all the Muslims were blamed for any crime committed by a Muslim individual in any part of the world.

"Any crime committed by a Muslim was immediately blamed on the whole 1.3 billion Muslims and this was reflected in the Christchurch killings where a man, a terrorist, brazenly filmed shooting innocent women and children and innocent people in a mosque and then he didn't regretted. This was because of Islamophobia," he added.

The Malaysian premier, for his part, called for an increased trade between the two countries, which would help in growing both economies.