The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said the world is living in dark times reminiscent of the years leading up to the second world war as he lambasted decisions by Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.



Q&A Why does Donald Trump want to scrap the Iran nuclear deal? Show Donald Trump’s victory in US election in November 2016 put the fate of the deal in doubt. He had promised prior to his election to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran”, although many believed he might instead adopt a more rigorous implementation of the agreement and tighten sanctions already in place. This could force Tehran to violate first or make the deal redundant.

In January, he reluctantly waived a raft of sanctions against Iran as required by Congress every 120 days, but said “this is a last chance” and asked “European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal”. The congressional deadline Trump faces this time is on 12 May, but he tweeted on Monday that he will announce his decision by Tuesday. Trump believes the agreement is a bad deal, which falls short of addressing Iran’s regional behaviouror its missile programme. He is emboldened by a group of Iran hawks in his inner circle, such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Read a full explainer here

Offering himself as the spokesman of the Muslim Middle East, he also criticised Europe for not doing as much as Turkey to help 3.5 million Syrian refugees, adding the EU had never fulfilled its part of a refugee deal with Turkey by providing promised cash.

Erdoğan was speaking at the thinktank Chatham House in London on the second day of a UK state visit. It has turned into part of his election campaign as a result of his decision to bring forward the date of the Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections by a year to 24 June.

Theresa May, eyeing a post-Brexit free trade deal with Turkey, as well as security cooperation over returning foreign fighters, has taken a strategic bet on Turkey that has led to criticism of the Conservatives’ willingness to overlook Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian rule in pursuit of commercial agreements.

Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat leader, picked out the environment secretary, Michael Gove, accusing him of “a fawning silence” over Erdoğan’s visit despite promising Brexit would give the UK a chance to promote human rights under the banner of “global Britain”.

In his talks with May, Erdoğan indicated he was likely to press the UK to do more to hand over any exiles that he regarded as linked to the coup that nearly toppled his government in 2015.

He said the US had forfeited its role as mediator in the Middle East and claimed the decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “did not abide by international law or UN decisions”.

He said: “America has chosen to be part of the problem and not the solution so they have lost their role as international mediator. We cannot stop feeling like being in dark days of pre-world war two.”

He said he was compelled to point out that Iran had stuck to the terms of the deal reached in 2015 with Barack Obama, and it was vital that there was a continuum on such deals.

The Iranian decision, he said, was part of a pattern of selfish unilateral decisions being taken by the US administration.

Erdoğan vowed he would continue to clear Syrian Kurds from his border after the Turkish capture of the Kurdish-held town of Afrin. He denounced US cooperation with Kurdish groups, saying the Kurdish Syrian YPD was trying to camouflage its Kurdish identity by joining with other forces in the fight against Islamic State.

The British government is less willing to link the YPD with the Kurdish PKK forces fighting inside Turkey, but acknowledges there is a link. The UK ambassador to Turkey says action will be taken against any British person known to be fighting for the YPD.

Although Erdoğan appears to have lessened his determination to see Bashar al-Assad removed, as part of his growing cooperation with Russia over Syria’s future, many of his remarks off the record suggest he still regards him as a mass murderer who cannot remain leader for long.

He also called for the five permanent members of the UN security council to relinquish their role and to hand their seats over on a rotating basis to the broader membership from the general assembly. He claimed that Turkey was more democratic than many EU states.