Erdogan slams US decision to revoke Palestinian visas ahead of UN meeting
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the United States should urgently revise its decision to revoke the visas of Palestinian officials and bar them from attending a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this month in New York.
Washington said last week it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and others to travel to New York, where several U.S. allies are set to recognise Palestine as a state.
The move “does not fit the United Nations’ raison d’etre,” Erdogan told reporters on a flight home from China, according to a readout from his office on Tuesday. “The decision needs to be urgently revised. The United Nations General Assembly exists for the issues of the world to be discussed and for solutions to be found.”
“The Palestinian delegation not being at the General Assembly would only please Israel,” he added. “What is expected from the United States is to say ‘stop’ to Israel’s massacres, cruelty”.
The State Department justified its decision on barring Abbas and others by reiterating longstanding U.S. and Israeli allegations that the Palestinian Authority and the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation had failed to repudiate extremism while pushing for “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state.
The General Assembly opens on September 9, but leaders are set to meet in New York later in the month amid growing criticism over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
NATO member Turkey has fiercely criticised Israel over its actions in Gaza and says it is committing genocide there. It has halted all trade with Israel, called for international measures against it, and has repeatedly urged world powers to stop supporting Israel.
Israel has strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self-defence. On Monday it rejected a resolution by an association of genocide scholars saying the legal criteria have been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide, saying the statement was based on lies by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Since last week, Turkey has also been calling for Israel to be suspended from international organisations, including the U.N. General Assembly.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan first made the call during an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting, saying recent Western pledges on the recognition of a Palestinian state showed the “tide is turning against Israel”, but that further measures were needed.
He said a coordinated, joint effort within the UN was needed to push “for Palestine’s full membership, while also considering the suspension of Israel from the work of the General Assembly”.
Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus repeated that call during an extraordinary parliamentary session on Gaza on Friday, saying Israel must be suspended from international organisations until it ends its “genocidal policies”.
Source: Reuters
–Agencies