The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared along with Gray Wolves leader Develet Bahceli and in a delusional and provocative speech he specifically referred to the Asia Minor Catastrophe in the same city that witnessed the uprooting of its indigenous Greek population.

“Smyrna! You healed the plagues of many Balkan cities like Thessaloniki, Crete, Skopje, Kosovo, Varna. Smyrna! You who Mustafa Kemal on September 9th with his army freed you once again. Smyrna you that you throw the infidels in the sea and protect the helpless!”

During his speech, he once again referred to the New Zealand assassin, displaying on video wall excerpts from the manifesto and images of the audiovisual material that Tarant was filming at the time of his shootings to the multitude of faithful in the mosque.

“We do not want to see a conflict between the cross and the crescent again”, Erdogan said, adding: “The wicked man who killed 49 overseers tells us that we can live on the Eastern side, we can not go to the European side.”