ANKARA
Turkey is the only hope for peace in our region, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
Turkey is the only hope for establishing peace among Turks, Kurds, Arabs and all the other brother ethnic groups in the whole region, Erdogan said at an iftar, or fast-breaking dinner, to mark to sacred month of Muharrem.
"You can be sure that the antidote for all these crises is in Turkey. Turkey is the best hope to leave behind all these battles and conflicts," Erdogan said,
"With its Alevi and Sunni population, Turkey is the sole hope for reconciling the region's various ethnic elements including Turks, Kurds and Arabs."
Every single drop of blood spilled in the region is brothers' blood and the loser at the end of this game is our region itself, while the winners are those who set the stage for such discord, Erdogan said.
"Shiites are falling at Najaf's shrines, and the winner is not Sunnis, but our enemies. As Sunnis are dying in Baghdad mosques, not Shiites but hatemongers are winning. As childrens are dying in the poor neighborhoods of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Idlib and Hama, not Nusayris but instigators are winning."
Addressing Alevis and Sunnis in Turkey, Erdogan said: "Our grief is shared, our direction is shared, our book is shared. We should not allow some states to play their dirty games with us. We should not allow spies to play games on our soil. We should not allow those trying to spread the decadence of the modern world to our youth. Let's not ignore our youth, allowing them to die in the traps of terrorism. Let's take Karbala as an example, and embrace each other."
Some 13 centuries ago today, on the tenth day of the Islamic sacred month of non-violence called Muharrem, Hussein was beheaded in the Battle of Karbala along with his six-month-old infant son.
Hussein and his supporters had refused to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliph Yazid, considered as unjust by Hussein’s supporters who argued that leadership of the Muslim world belonged to him.
The battle took place in 680 AD in the modern-day Iraqi city of Karbala – it has held a central place in Islamic history ever since due to its brutality.
Since then, millions of Muslims all around the world have held memorial services to show their allegiance to Imam Hussein.
Today's portrait in Muslim territories are not the one that Hussein, nor his brother Hassan, nor their father Ali and our Prophet Mohammed's would affirm, Erdogan said.
"The murderer is a murderer before being Shiite or Sunni, the terrorist is a terrorist before being an Alevi or a Salafi. Those who legitimize terrorists attacks against the people praying in mosques on the grounds of that they are committed by 'Shiites' are taking sides with the killers of our Imam Hussein," he said.
"There are such countries legitimizing terrorism by naming the terrorist 'Shiite,' those legitimizing the state terrorism, because of the Nusayri regime. Such countries legitimizing violence by calling the terrorist, murderer 'Sunni.'"
From the first day of Muharrem, Alevis in Turkey perform a 12-day fast as they commemorate Karbala at Djemevis, Alevi places of worship.
They also prepare a special type of dessert called Ashura, which means in Arabic 'the 10th of Muharram', the exact date when the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein was killed.
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