Erdo?an skips tour of Mexican pyramids, ends visit early

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has concluded his Latin America tour one day earlier than planned, skipping a visit to pre-Columbian pyramids in Mexico, Anadolu Agency reported on Feb. 13, citing presidential sources.

Erdo?an was hosted by Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the chairman of Gruma, the largest manufacturer of corn flour and tortillas in the world, at a dinner in Mexico City on Feb. 12. After the dinner, he decided to return to Turkey earlier than planned, according to Anadolu Agency.

His original schedule had included a Feb. 13 visit to Teotihuacan, located 48 km northeast of modern-day Mexico City. The ancient city is known today as the site of many of the most architecturally significant Mesoamerican pyramids built in the pre-Columbian Americas.

President Erdo?an attracted international attention after claiming in a Nov. 15 speech that America was discovered by Muslims, adding that Christopher Columbus mentioned seeing a mosque on top of a hill in Cuba in his memoirs. On the Cuba leg of his Latin America tour on Feb. 11, Erdo?an presented President Raul Castro with Ankara?s proposal to build a mosque in Havana.

Although Columbus is the first European explorer whose voyages in the 1490s led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, the earliest ?widespread? habitation of the continent is dated around 16,500?13,000 years ago.