Political parties must unite against terror: President

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday that Turkey's fighting is against terrorism and terrorist organizations, not people's ethnicity.

“Our Kurdish brothers do not represent the terrorist organization. The Kurdish questions are different from the terror problem," the President said in an address during the inauguration session of the Grand National Assembly.

“My Kurdish brothers are not the same as terrorists. It is actually our Kurdish brothers who have suffered from terror the most," he said.

Erdoğan has urged political parties to ensure a sound unity, solidarity and cooperation against terror, by putting all of our differences aside. “We should not allow for any weakness when taking stance against terror. That's the matter we need domestic and nationalist stance the most," he asserted.

“This battle will continue until the PKK will not mean a security risk for our country and people, and their weapons will be buried and concrete be poured on them."

The President also called all parties in the Parliament to fulfill their responsibility in terms of ensuring the will of the nation in the most democratic way possible. "It is a matter of honor for all political parties to ensure the will of people which will be reflected on ballot boxes in the November 1 elections," he urged.

Meanwhile, MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, staged a mass protest against Erdoğan.

While the Parliament Speaker İsmet Yılmaz invited Erdoğan to the General Assembly following his introductory remarks, Kurdish MPs refused to stand up, as required by custom, and left the Parliament as a whole when Erdoğan just began delivering his speech after the national anthem was played.

The co-chairs of the main Kurdish parties, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, were absent from the opening session. The main opposition CHP's Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was not present at the session, as he is travelling to France on Oct. 1 as part of his election campaign. Nationalist Movement Party's leader, Devlet Bahçeli, was not present at the session as well.

The President emphasized that Turkey has given a big humanity lesson to the international community by hosting over two million Syrians, who fled from the war over the past four years. "Beyond fullfilling its mission to its neighbor, Turkey has also saved the honor of all humanity. Our nation working devotedly has taught the international community a big lesson of humanity."

Erdoğan also unveiled how much Turkey has paid to help Syrian refugees so far, touching on his country's efforts to support Syrians who were seeking a safe place to live.

"So far, Turkey has spent more than $7.7 billion to cover the needs of Syrian refugees, while the financial support from other countries has been only $417 million," he said, criticizing the EU countries for their failure to help the Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers.