Turkish Finance Minister Agbal recites hate-filled poem against Greeks in Turkish Parliament

While the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras was meeting with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s Finance Minister Naci Agbal was using rhetoric in the Turkish parliament against Greece comparable to that used by an extreme right Golden Dawn MEP who was expelled from the European parliament. According to the Cypriot News Agency, the Turkish Minister cited a poem calling for bombings of infidel Greek churches to silence the bell chiming. ‘No prayer is heard anymore, the cross on the pulpit. The infidel Greek placed his flag all over the mosques. Come brother, hand in hand to bomb and silence the bells. The bells are silent’, read some of the verses he reportedly cited to the Turkish national assembly. The Minister said he read the verses as an response to another poem from the Republican party in honour of International Woman’s Day. After the furor caused, Agbal was forced to rephrase saying that he does not have hateful feelings towards the Greek people, but used the poem in a particular historical context.