ANKARA
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu condemned on Wednesday the deadly attack against French satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo that killed 12 people in central Paris.
"Nothing can justify this kind of terror act," Davutoglu said in a press conference in Ankara.
"Turkey has always taken this position against terror and violent acts, no matter what its justification," Davutoglu said.
The Turkish prime minister said that these kinds of terror attacks need to be prevented in areas with already climbing cultural tension, so that these regions do not transform into conflict areas.
Davutoglu said it is necessary, now more than never, for all countries to take a collective attitude against these kinds of attacks, as well as against racism and xenophobia. This is in order to achieve a world without terror and where cultural peace and mutual respect prevail, he added.
“This terror attack cannot be linked with Islam. Any connection established between Islam and these activities is wrong,” Davutoglu said.
Three masked men armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles and a rocket-launcher attacked people inside the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing 12 and injuring eight, five critically.
They fled the building of the magazine, which sparked controversy in 2006 and 2012 for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
No organization has taken responsibility for the attack yet, which comes at a time when cultural tensions and xenophobia have been on the rise in neighboring Germany.
More than 18,000 people took to the streets on Monday in the eastern German city of Dresden in support of a right-wing group calling itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West. They were heard shouting anti-immigrant and anti-refugee slogans.
The rally prompted massive counter-demonstrations in a number of cities including Cologne, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg, where thousands of immigrants and Germans protested against the populist group and its copycat anti-Islam movements.
