President Erdoğan sent a video message to the Gala Dinner for the 46th Annual Conference of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA).
In his message, President Erdoğan, wishing the 46th Annual Conference of the association to yield auspicious results and offering the greetings of Türkiye's 85 million citizens, stated, "Türkiye and Pakistan are two brotherly countries with special ties. Following the earthquakes on February 6, we observed the latest manifestation of our shared fate. With the humanitarian aid they sent, our Pakistani brothers and sisters once again demonstrated their solidarity with us."
President Erdoğan continued by emphasising how Pakistani-Americans helped Türkiye through the APPNA-led assistance effort in the aftermath of the earthquake, stating, "Our earthquake survivors will never forget your support during these trying times. We need your help and prayers to mend the scars of the earthquake that devastated our 11 provinces and killed over 50,000 of our people."
"In order to tackle Islamophobia, we must act in unity"
President Erdoğan wished for this unity and solidarity to be everlasting, saying:
"In order to tackle the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobia in Western nations, we must act in unity. The heinous assault on our holy book, the Qur'an, on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Sweden demonstrates the horrifying heights to which Islamophobia has reached. All of us, as Muslims, have an immense duty to ensure that such atrocities, which Türkiye strongly condemns, do not reoccur. No one in the world will have the courage to attack what Muslims hold sacred if we move forward with one heart and one voice.
When we are in solid ranks as if we are one concrete structure, as our Prophet ordered, nobody can take us down. We cannot allow anyone to divide us based on ethnic, sectarian, or cultural differences. I believe that Allah's grace will be with us if we all succeed in this endeavour."