22 November 2018•Update: 23 November 2018
IZMIR, Turkey
The 2016 presidential election in the U.S. has upset the world, creating a new global crisis, the Turkish parliament speaker said Thursday.
Binali Yildirim, who attended an economic forum in the western Turkish province of Izmir, slammed U.S. government policies after President Donald Trump took office in November 2016.
"Especially after the U.S. election, the world became more polarized. Protectionism and arbitrary decisions [of the U.S. government] has accelerated an unpredictable global crisis," he said.
Yildirim added that direct and indirect sanctions imposed by Washington on Turkey, Iran and Russia had affected the whole region.
He said regional problems in the Middle East have renewed threats against Turkey.
"This chaos near Turkey affects us and Turkey is paying a great price. We have been paying it for eight years but we don't ignore them. We give a helping hand to people in trouble," Yildirim said, referring to civil war in Syria and Turkey's efforts to help Syrian refugees.
"Countries who have imperial goals have difficulties understanding this. Because they see everything as money."
Turkey hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees -- more than any other country in the world.
Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.
Reporting by Tolga Albay:Writing by Can Erozden
