PERMATANG PAUH (Malaysia), Aug 6 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia and Turkiye will cooperate to form a movement to tackle Islamophobia at the international level, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Saturday.
The matter was discussed during a virtual meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he added.
“We discussed Islamophobia. Erdogan and I agreed to head this effort together. Erdogan said could we both start a movement and do something to counter attacks against Islam, especially in the United States and Europe.
“I said please, I agreed and I said we will prepare a (working) paper and discuss the matter and he replied that he intended to come to Malaysia as soon as possible,” he said during his speech here Saturday night.
Anwar also shared that Erdogan asked him to be present with him at the United Nations general assembly in September to hold meetings and discuss how to tackle Islamophobia.
Anwar said that Islamophobia, which is prejudice against the religion of Islam, especially in Western countries, led to acts like the burning of Qurans in Sweden.
“On Quran burnings, I issued a very strong statement condemning such acts and I then instructed the order to print a million Qurans, including those in the Swedish language, to be distributed worldwide,” he said.
Meanwhile, Anwar through a Facebook post, said Malaysia has expressed its commitment to contribute 1 million copies of the Quran worldwide, including 15,000 copies with Swedish translation, as one of the efforts to deal with the West’s shallowness in their understanding of Islam.
He also announced that Erdogan will be visiting Malaysia soon.
He said Erdogan has expressed clear commitment regarding the visit in fulfilling his invitation to further strengthen the relationship between the two countries.
“President Erdogan and I also agreed to meet face to face during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York next month,” read the post.
In the meeting, Anwar said he and Erdogan also discussed defence cooperation when the Turkish Defence Industry Agency (SSB) sent a large delegation to participate in the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA 2023) last May.
The Prime Minister, in expressing his admiration for Turkiye’s defence technology advancement, said he was confident that Malaysia would benefit greatly from the close cooperation between the two countries.
“I have agreed in principle to finalise the Memorandum of Understanding in defence cooperation soon,” said Anwar.
— NNN-BERNAMA