Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday launched a veiled attack on the United States over economic sanctions that wreaked havoc in his country.

Trade wars have been harmful to humanity and the world is on the brink of another period of trade wars, he said at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly.

"None of us can remain silent to the arbitrary cancellation of commercial agreements and prevalent protectionism and the use of economic sanctions as a weapon, because the negative effects of these twisted developments will eventually affect all countries," said Erdogan.

"Today, unfortunately, some countries are persistently trying to create chaos," he said.

He called on the international community to work together to prevent damage to the world trade regime from such unilateral decisions in the form of sanctions.

Turkey is in favor of free trade and free movement of persons, he said. "Every regression in this respect will have negative repercussions that will be hard to erase for the generations to come."

He also said his country is in favor of peaceful settlement of trade disputes and seeks win-win results.