Global General

Turkish PM says to support least developed countries

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-10 16:26

ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey will support least developed countries to combat poverty, local media reported Tuesday.

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Turkey will assume an important role concerning least developed countries for the next 10 years, Erdogan was quoted by the semi- official Anatolia news agency as telling reporters at a TV program on the Kanal 7 channel on Monday, when the 4th United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries opened in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

"We will make everything we can for our friendly and brotherly countries, particularly for the ones in Africa," said Erdogan.

Turkey planned to open 30 embassies in African countries in the first phase and increase the figure to 52 in future, he said.

The prime minister criticized some developed countries for lacking interest in the UN conference, saying they showed the same approach towards the previous three conferences on least developed countries.

Poverty and terrorism were related matters, said Erdogan, noting that supporting Africa was an important step in that context.

Commenting on the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Erdogan said Turkey had called on the world to establish an international platform to fight terrorism after the September 11 terrorist attack, but many countries were not interested.

Turkey had tried to prevent efforts aiming at linking terrorism to Islam, he said, adding that the United States' declaring the world a safe place after bin Laden's death was not accurate.

"This is not an individual act. There is not only one Laden in the world, there are many," he was quoted as saying.