Turkish President Erdogan is 'champion of Muslims': Malaysian parliament speaker

By Esat Firat

ALGIERS, Algeria (AA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the "champion of Muslims," said Malaysia’s parliament speaker on Monday.

"Erdogan is a person we also admire enviously and we can say that he is the champion of Muslims," Dato Johari bin Abdul said at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mustafa Sentop in Algeria.

Sentop and Abdul met on the sidelines of the 17th session of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Member States (PUIC) in Algeria, where they discussed enhancing cooperation between the two parliaments.

Stressing the goal of boosting bilateral trade with Malaysia, which has been upgraded to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership level, Sentop told his counterpart that the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the July 15, 2016 defeated coup in Türkiye, poses a national security risk to the countries in which it operates.

Sentop said FETO spreads its activities by destabilizing countries and can hide itself behind structures such as educational institutions and NGOs.

Stressing his satisfaction with Malaysia's cooperation in the fight against FETO, Sentop also conveyed his expectation for a solution on FETO-affiliated schools that are still active in Malaysia.

For his part, Abdul said that they understand the structure of the FETO and support Türkiye on this issue.

Separately, Sentop held a closed-door meeting with Algerian National Assembly Speaker Salah Goudjil.

"In our meeting, where we discussed relations between our parliaments, we had the opportunity to evaluate the common problems of the Islamic world, and the PUIC meeting," Sentop said on Twitter.

* Writing by Diyar Guldogan in Ankara with contributions