Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Photo: Wilson Dias.

Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took to Twitter on Friday to complain about allegations of anti-Semitism against him.

“Inside and outside there is an unethical campaign that is being waged against us, in which they are trying to expose us as anti-Semites by distorting our words”, Erdoğan tweeted.

He continued, “We follow the footsteps of our ancestry who embraced the Jews for centuries, and opened their arms when they were expelled from Spain.”

“In the history of our nation there has never been anti-Semitism; not today, and there will never be in the future.”

The premier’s comments came a day after a New York based Jewish group demanded that he return an award that it had presented to him in 2004. The request came following violent anti-Israel riots in Istanbul and Ankara and after Erdoğan called Israel a “terrorist state” and claimed the Jewish state had “surpassed Hitler in barbarism.”

In a letter, the Jewish group said, “A decade after we gave you our award, you have become arguably the most virulent anti-Israel leader in the world—spewing dangerous rhetoric for political gain and inciting the Turkish population to violence against the Jewish people.”