Turkey dismisses Russian spokeswoman’s ’Ottoman’ comment

A Turkish high official dismissed Thursday a Russian spokeswoman’s comments regarding what she called the “destructive role of the Turkish government” on various issues.

Maria Zakharova, the official spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry told the daily Izvestia on Wednesday that Turkey was “striving to restore the previous might of the Ottoman Empire in one way or another.”

"Everybody knows how the Ottoman Empire ended,” she is quoted as saying by the TASS news agency. "Unfortunately, we can see an absolutely destructive role of the Turkish government on every, be it Crimea, Syria, refugees, terrorism, ethnic problems, and so on."

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said Thursday that comments from those “who do not respect the territorial integrity of their neighbors” and “try to camouflage their own internal problems with adventures in foreign policy, have no value in our eyes.”

Bilgic said it is a very strange situation when “the spokesperson of a country that has experienced three experiences in the 20th century gives lessons to the others about the collapse of states,” Anadolu Agency reported.