Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again found himself in the center of a firestorm of backlash over his latest controversial comments.

During a women's conference in Istanbul, he stated that women cannot be treated as equal to men, and accused feminists of rejecting motherhood.

"You cannot put women and men on an equal footing," Erdogan said at a women's justice summit, according to The Associated Press. "It is against nature. They were created differently. Their nature is different. Their constitution is different."

He went on to allege that feminists are disconnected to Islam, which honors motherhood.

"Our religion regards motherhood very highly. Feminists don't understand that, they reject motherhood," he said at the conference. "Some people can understand this, while others can't. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don't accept the concept of motherhood. In the workplace, you cannot treat a man and a pregnant woman in the same way [because it's against their] delicate nature,"

The president also stated that women needed equal respect instead of equality.

According to Erdogan, justice is the solution to most of the world's issues, including racism, anti-Semitism and "women's problems".

In the past, the Turkish leader has said that women should have least three children, and he has tried to outlaw abortion, The Associated Press reports.

Women's rights activists say his inflammatory remarks put women in danger.

"Such comments by state officials, which disregard equality between men and women, play an important role in the rise of violence against women," Hulya Gulbahar, a lawyer and activist, told The Associated Press. "Such comments aim to make women's presence in public life -- from politics to arts, from science to sports -- debatable."

Erdogan recently stirred up controversy when he argued that Muslims discovered the Americas 300 years before Christopher Columbus, reports BBC.

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