TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Turkey is unsettled by anti-Islamic messages in the US presidential race, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu said in a wide-ranging policy speech to Turkish ambassadors on Monday.





Last month, the Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States in the most hardline response by a candidate yet to a shooting spree by two radicalized ISIL-sympathizers.

"We have no choice," Trump said at a rally in South Carolina, warning of more attacks if measures were not taken.

Separately on Saturday, a 56-year-old Muslim American woman was thrown out of a rally in support of Donald Trump following a silent protest.

Cavusoglu defended Turkey's deployment of a force protection unit to Bashiqa in Iraq, which has caused a diplomatic row with Baghdad, saying Ankara respected Iraq's territorial integrity and that the deployment was made after security deteriorated, Reuters reported.

Speaking at an annual ambassadors' conference in Ankara, Cavusoglu said Turkey was ready to do what is needed to help end tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which escalated after Riyadh executed a senior Shiite cleric.

By Tasnim News Agency