Russian President, Vladimir Putin was speaking in Turkish Capital, Ankara, on Monday (16 September 2019) in a discussion urging for peace in Yemen. Speaking alongside Turkey’s President Racep Tayyep Erdogan and Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, Putin surprisingly quoted particular line from Muslim’s holy book, al-Quran.
The
Russian President’s reference raised approving eyebrows from the audiences. Putin
also referenced another lines from Quran. The verse he quoted from the Quran
was verse 190 of Surah al-Baqarah:
“Fight
in the way of Allah those who fight against you, but do not aggress. Allah does
not love the aggressors.”
The verse
is about how agression is only legitimate in self-defense context, whilst jokingly
suggested that Russian air defense would gladly help Saudi Arabia to protect their
country for “self-defense”, as Russia have done to Iran and Turkey.
“The
Quran says that any kind of violence is unacceptable, except for one kind of
violence, when you protect your people,” Said Putin as reported by
New York Times.
“We are ready to help Saudi Arabia protect their people,” He said. “They need to make clever
decisions, as Iran did by buying our S300, as Mr. Erdogan did by deciding to
buy the most advanced S400 air defense systems. These kinds of systems are
capable of defending any kind of infrastructure in Saudi Arabia from any kind
of attack,” he added.
Iran’s
President, Hassan Rouhani, seated next to Mr. Putin, nodded. It is reported that The Russian strongman’s reference
was quoted with approval beforehand by Erdogan and Rouhani, who are Sunni and
Shia Muslim respectively.
The leaders admonished the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths over the past five years and has utterly devastated the country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The war in
Yemen began with a civil war between Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government,
which was supported by Saudi Arabia. The war then escalated into wider warfare
with air strikes from the Saudi-led coalition and a massive ground invasion in
2015.
Saudi-led
coalition forces have not succeeded in defeating the Houthis, which are backed
by Iran, even though the war has been going on for years. The Houthis have
claimed a drone attack that destroyed Aramco’s oil refinery in Saudi Arabia on
Saturday (14 September 2019) morning.
Tens of
thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, and millions face the threat of
starvation as the result of the civil war.
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