SIVAS, Turkey
Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday that Turkey and his party will always speak out against Islamophobia.
His comments came after three young Muslim-Americans were shot dead by their neighbor in North Carolina, U.S., in what many are calling a hate crime.
"We will always speak in the name of our brother and two sisters (who were killed) in the U.S.," he told a provincial congress of his Justice and Development Party in Sivas province. "But may Allah be my witness, may humanity and all other martyrs not forgive us and give their blessings if we keep silent about oppression and these massacres."
Davutoglu called the suspect, 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, "a racist murderer." He also lashed out at the world saying they have remained silent in the face of the killings.
During a speech at Mexico's Matias Romero Institute on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also urged U.S. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry to take a firm stand against the murders and condemn them in a statement.
The FBI on Thursday night announced it had launched a "preliminary inquiry to determine whether or not any federal laws were violated related to the case."
Davutoglu also blamed Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu for calling on his government to close the borders while Syrians are rushing to Turkey seeking refuge.
"Where were you when your ideological brother (Bashar al-Assad) was slaughtering our oppressed Syrian brothers and sisters," he said. "If you had a conscience, you would not treat our brothers turning to us for shelter from Syria as foreigners."
