Erdogan lashes out at Egypt's Sisi over mass execution

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharply criticised his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after the recent execution of nine people in Egypt, saying he refused to talk to "someone like him".

"They killed nine young people recently. This is not something we can accept," Erdogan said Saturday in an interview with Turkish TV channels CNN-Turk and Kanal D, referring to the execution Wednesday of nine men sentenced for the murder of the Egyptian prosecutor general in 2015.

"Of course, we are going to be told that it is a decision of the judiciary, but there, justice, elections, all that, are codswallop. There is an authoritarian system, even totalitarian," Erdogan added.

"Now, I am answering those who wonder why Tayyip Erdogan does not speak to Sisi, because there are mediators who come here sometimes, but I will never talk to someone like him," he said.

Relations between Turkey and Egypt have been virtually non-existent since the Egyptian military, then led by Sisi, in 2013 ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Erdogan.