ANKARA - Turkish premier strongly refuted Tuesday criticisms directed against investments by several Arab countries in Turkey, accusing critics of making what he called "racism and discrimination."
"Qatari, Syrian, Saudi, Kuwaiti businessmen make investments all over the world, but when they do it in Turkey certain people react in a different manner," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a group meeting of his Justice and Development (AK) Party in the parliament.
"This is an open discrimination, this is capital racism, an understanding which would seriously hurt Turkey's economy, foreign trade and its growth. Economic investments, capital inflow and trade cannot have any color, race or nation," he said.
The Turkish prime minister also said Turkey's economic relations with all of its trade partners had made a "leap" over the last five years, adding that Turkish businessmen and contractors had increased their investments five times in Qatar only to reach 5 billion USD.
(YMB-MS)