Top 46 Erdogan Quotes & Sayings

He [Erdogan] has crept up to the edge talking about mistakes by pilots. But he also knows that with leaders like himself and Vladimir Putin, apologies may not be the answer. Just look at Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized years ago to Erdogan over this incident off the coast of Gaza in which Turkish people died onboard an aid ship. And only just now is that relationship at least in talks to be improved.

Our team security said, even if you go to a supermarket, have someone with you. So everywhere I go - grocery shopping, practice, go to games, go to plays - I always have someone with me because you never know, a lone wolf, one of the crazy Erdogan supporters will do something.

Turkey is not an enemy of Israel. I have worked closely with the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Looking at polls of Arab public opinion, you look at popular figures, the most popular figure is the prime minister of Turkey, Erdogan, and then it goes down the list. You get Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, you don't get Obama, or in fact any western leader. The public doesn't want the whole imperial project. So if you had democracy, it would be all over.

Tayyip Erdogan wants to go beyond George W. Bush by making critical journalism and critics in the academy illegal. What will be the difference between him and a military government? Very little. I read his remarks on the effectiveness of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Well, yes. But then the AKP would have to ban all other political parties, close down all critical newspapers, burn the books critical of the regime and gas the Kurds to death...the final solution of the Kurdish 'problem.' Somehow I don't think he is about to do that.

[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest.

The Turkey deal can only be Plan B. Plan A needs to be a strong Europe that is prepared to defend its external borders on its own. If we do not do that, then we are living in a Europe that is dependent - on other countries, and possibly even on personalities like President Erdogan. And dependency is dangerous.

Our politics is very masculine, very aggressive, and it's very polarizing. And the pace of this development has increased in recent years. Erdogan is, in my eyes, the most polarizing politician in recent Turkish political history.

I often speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When I speak with the Turkish president, I defend European positions. That is how we European partners must do things.

When Prime Minister Erdogan came to Washington in 2009, he sounded almost like the ambassador from Iran.

President Erdogan is aiming Turkey at a Sharia nation. That’s where he wants to go. He is a Sharia law, full-fledged, one percent Islamist.

The situation in Turkey is extremely troubling. A panic-stricken regime, desperate to divide the Kurdish population from non-Kurds because it feared the rise of the HDP, has helped to create a huge crisis in the country. Can it be ended while Tayyip Erdogan remains in power? I don't think so. Erdogan may not be a "joker," but he is definitely a political plagiarist.

If Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot placate ISIS, how are we ever gonna be able to? And placate is clearly what John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, and Barack Hussein O and Hillary Clinton think is the only thing we have to do is placate them. Because we’re at fault, see.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be considered a gradualist. He is not decreeing Sharia as the law of the land tomorrow. He’s making gradual steps to desecularize the country so it’s not a shock to everyone, doesn’t cause all kinds of panic in the western world and the Europe world. And ISIS might be growing impatient. Even though they’ve been allied over oil and Syria, ISIS could be growing impatient. Then they see the deal with Israel, and they say, “To hell with this.”

The Turkish government is very famous for hunting down those who oppose Erdogan... I just didn't really want to risk my life by going to Europe where Erdogan's long arms are everywhere.

The allies we formerly relied on - the Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces - will have little interest in helping us after we abandon them to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

My father has been targeted for persecution by the Turkish government and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because of his association with me.

Because I play in the NBA, I am lucky enough to have a public platform, so I've used every opportunity to make sure everyone knows about Erdogan's cruelty and disdain for human rights.

The West and its media have barely covered the recent wave of repression in Turkey. The reason is simple. They are paying billions to Ankara to control and take back the refugees of the Syrian war. They are fearful that if they offend Tayyip Erdogan he will use the refugees as a political weapon. So they keep quiet.

People often ask me why I continue to speak out if it's hurting my family. But that's exactly why I speak out. The people Erdogan is targeting are my family, my friends, my neighbors, my classmates. I need to speak out, or my country will suffer in silence.

Donald Trump has made the principle of purposely breaking a taboo into a means of achieving his political objectives, which is something that he has in common with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump systematically violates international rules. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget that Trump is not the U.S.

Almost half of the Turkish population believes it is not legitimate to criticize the government. Interestingly, this correlates with the number of supporters of Erdogan's government.

The Erdogan government's first major step outside of the U.S. alliance was during the Bush Administration, when it wouldn't let Washington use Turkey as a launching ground for U.S. troops entering Iraq in 2003.

I've spoken several times with Prime Minister Erdogan about relations between Turkey and Israel. I'm pleased that, following President Obama's visit to Israel, talks between Israel and Turkey are again taking place and hope that relations between them will further improve in the interest of both countries.

What you're seeing is tension that we've seen for years between President Erdogan and his military, his military being more secular, President Erdogan being a little more in the Islamist side of the house.

Politicians like Prime Minister David Cameron have lost all sense of reality. The people have seen how billions were spent on Greece and Turkey, on deals with Erdogan or for asylum seekers.

Erdogan wants an old-fashioned Islam, if you will, for lack of a better term.

I don't believe that in a couple of months Erdogan and the United States regime, and the Western regimes in general, and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are going to stop the support of the terrorists.

There might be many similarities between Erdogan and Putin. We can see that in the current developments, unfortunately. But Viktor Orban seriously does not fit in that list.

There is a heated debate in Turkey these days over whether the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is furthering democracy or rolling it back.

Feminists are now being vilified in politics, erdogan used to speak more embracingly, saying he was the leader of everyone, whether they voted for him or not. He sounds as if he puts a distance between himself and half the nation.

May 20, 2017, was one of the scariest days of my life. It was the day I realized I was being hunted by Erdogan.

The Turks know that if they want to join the EU, then they must respect our rules. We are a union of beliefs, not a bunch of squawking chickens. But if we continue talks with Erdogan, that doesn't mean we have to bow down to him.

Leaders' like Maduro, Erdogan and Putin hate freedom because it gives filthy peasants too much say and power over their own lives.

Even touching Erdogan is a form of worship.

What we are seeing in Turkey is a non-uniformed authoritarian regime led by a politician, Tayyip Erdogan, who has allowed power to go to his head and is behaving more and more like a despot. Sooner or later this will provoke political uprisings throughout the country as happened after Gezi.

President Erdogan has been my personal friend for a long time.

When Presidents Trump, Putin and Erdogan are mentioned in the same breath here in Germany, as they are all too often, this is a false equivalence that cannot be tolerated.

Erdogan wants a caliphate. We Kurds are in his way. Erdogan can't stop us politically, so he is denouncing us as terrorists.

Let's be realistic, every terrorist came to Syria, he came through Turkey with the support of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. So, fighting those terrorists is like fighting the army of Erdogan, not the Turkish army, the army of Erdogan.

And it would be a bit out of character. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have started out as a reformer, but he really enjoys being seen as a larger-than-life tough-guy figure. He doesn't go on photographed hunting expeditions, for instance. But he does have hero moments, such as when his convoy stopped in the middle of the Bosphorus Bridge and he allegedly talked down a jumper, prevented him from committing suicide.

Erdogan thinks if he gets rid of me, he thinks ending me will end the movement. He couldn't be more wrong.

Donald Trump is a catalyst. People care now in a way they didn't. The American institutions were rusting; now they are being revitalised. Trump is a lightning rod. They are getting engaged and the American liberal media that spent too much time on PC issues can focus on Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

I am very worried about this concentration of power, and it's not only because of Erdogan. We have the ballot box, but we don't have the culture of democracy. The government says: You see, we have the majority, we're entitled to do anything we want. But that's not democracy, that's majoritarianism.

Erdogan's persecution of his people is not simply a domestic matter. The ongoing pursuit of civil society, journalists, academics and Kurds in Turkey is threatening the long-term stability of the country.

A former Erdogan ally, Gulen has been living in self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, since 1999.