Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at a joint media briefing with Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo at the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia July 31, 2015. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside
ANKARA, Turkey— Turkey has summoned the Iranian ambassador to demand an end to reports in Iranian state media linking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shiite cleric.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement late Thursday saying that Turkey protested reports suggesting that the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was linked to Erdogan’s recent visit to Riyadh.
The ministry said: “We strongly condemn the linking of our president’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia to the executions sentenced in the country in stories published on media outlets linked to Iranian official bodies.”
It also criticized attacks on two Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
Turkey’s government has urged both Riyadh and Tehran to ease tensions, and it later said that the executions were Saudi Arabia’s internal affair.