"There are those inside and outside the country who are envious about Turkey growing too much," Atalay, one of four deputy prime ministers, told reporters on Monday in comments broadcast on the Cihan news agency website.
"They are all uniting. On the one side you have the Jewish diaspora. You have seen the foreign media`s attitude over the Gezi Park events, how quickly they bought into it and how quickly and widely they started broadcasting before any assesment was made," he said.
The Turkish Jewish Community, which represents most of Turkey`s estimated 23,000 Jewish faithful, said Atalay`s remarks could lead to reprisals against its members in a mostly Muslim country of 76 million.
The statement from the Atalay`s office noted that the fact that the deputy prime minister didn`t targeted Jewish people will be more clear when looked at the entire transcript of the speech, adding that the speech only suggested that the international media quickly jumped into the protests and made unfair reporting. "There is no sign, phrase or targeting against Jewish citizens in Turkey or Jewish people in other countries in the speech," Atalay added.
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