Friday, 19 March 2021 5:58 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 19 March 2021 6:30 PM ]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized US President Joe Biden for calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a killer,” saying the comment is “unacceptable” and not befitting of a leader.
“Mr. Biden’s statements about Putin are not fitting of a president,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Friday, praising Putin for giving a clever and “classy” response.
“For me, Mr. Putin has done what is necessary by giving a very, very smart, very classy response,” he said.
Erdogan further called Putin a “friend and a strategic partner” despite differences over conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, and Libya.
In an interview with ABC on Tuesday, Biden was asked whether he thought the Russian president was a “killer,” to which he responded “I do.”
The American president also said that his Russian counterpart would “pay a price” for his alleged attempt to undermine Biden’s candidacy in the US election in 2020.
Russia recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations in response.
But President Putin himself responded by wishing the 78-year-old Biden “good health.”
“I remember in my childhood, when we argued in the courtyard, we used to say: it takes one to know one. And that’s not a coincidence, not just a children’s saying or joke,” the Russian president said.
Putin also said that Moscow would not cut ties with Washington over the matter.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow expected a formal apology from Washington over Biden’s comment, the Interfax news agency reported.
Tensions have been running high between the US and Russia in recent months, especially over an allegation that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2020 US election in favor of Biden’s then-rival Donald Trump.
Moscow has called that allegation “baseless” and “unsubstantiated.”
Separately, the US has been pressuring Turkey to drop a contract to purchase advanced Russian missile defense systems.
In a 2019 interview, Biden also called Erdogan an “autocrat.”
