The Turkish American National Steering Committee hosted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza on Sunday as the Turkish leader visited the country to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Speaking at the event, President Erdoğan noted that some groups of interest were actively trying to poison relations between his country and the United States.

"We will tell the truth, we will set a good example and represent Türkiye and the Turkish nation well to prevent it," the president said to Turkish American citizens, including civic society leaders.

"We will advance our relations further in the future based on our joint interest. It is quite normal to have differences of views in bilateral relations between the states, but we are aware that we have more in common and we have many windows of opportunity," he said, referring to the ties.

Türkiye and the U.S., two major allies, maintained warm ties for decades, but shifting foreign policies and international developments at times affected the relations. The most outstanding issue between the two countries nowadays appears to be blatant U.S. support for terrorist groups threatening Türkiye, including the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ), whose leader resides in Pennsylvania, and the PKK terrorist organization's Syrian wing, the YPG, which is supported by Washington under the pretext of a fight against Daesh. Türkiye was also disappointed at what it perceives as an attempt to link the sales of F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye to the expected Turkish ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership bid.

Erdoğan, who last met U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month in New Delhi, where they both attended a G-20 summit, said they agreed upon strengthening Turkish-U.S. friendship and cooperation.

"The strategic mechanism we agreed upon with Mr. Biden contributes to deepening the dialogue between our countries. Our bilateral trade volume reached a record level last year, exceeding $32 billion. We will further boost our cooperation based on joint interests. As long as we act in unity, I believe we will have better results," the president stated.

Desecration of Quran

At the same event, Erdoğan also spoke about acts of desecration of the Muslim holy book Quran.

Türkiye will not accept the justification of attacks on the sacred values of 2 billion Muslims worldwide under the guise of freedom of thought, he said. "To us, these actions are provocations that aim to incite people. He recalled that Türkiye pioneered the adoption of resolutions by the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. General Assembly, which view violent actions targeting holy books as violating international law. "We will continue our efforts in this regard," he added.

The president was referring to recent vicious attacks on the Quran, saying if hostility toward Islam is not prevented, perpetrators will become more reckless. "As Türkiye, we are responding to this snowballing threat," he added.

Erdoğan cautioned that the attacks, which he said were primarily targeting Muslims today, may very well be directed at groups of diverse origins, languages, cultures and beliefs tomorrow.