ISTANBUL: This week Türkiye will submit a petition to join the world court genocide case against Israel, the nation’s president announced on Monday.
“Our parliamentary legal team will submit our petition to join the genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague” on Wednesday, said Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Türkiye is doing everything in its power to end as soon as possible the “barbarism” that has claimed the lives of 40,000 innocents in Gaza over the past 10 months, he said after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.
“No matter what atrocities this bloodthirsty genocide network commits, it won’t stop Türkiye or the Turkish people from standing in solidarity with the Palestinians,” he added.
Türkiye, with all its resources, stands with Palestine “in these difficult days of struggle for its existence,” he said.
Saying that last week’s killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh marked “a new threshold in the Gaza crisis,” Erdogan said that “aggressive stance of Netanyahu’s administration, defying both rules and the law,” is subjecting the region to dire scenarios.
“No hopeful outcome emerged from the ceasefire talks. Despite Hamas’s constructive stance, the Netanyahu administration has repeatedly demonstrated its intention to continue its policy of massacres,” he added.
US ‘captive of Israel’
Erdogan warned that Tel Aviv will try everything to spread chaos and conflict across the region, as long as the “influential powers” maintain their hypocritical stance.
“Unfortunately, Western actors, particularly the US, have become captives of Israel and a handful of fanatical Zionists,” he added.
Highlighting that Türkiye is the country providing the clearest and strongest response to Israel’s genocide policy, Erdogan stated: “Our country’s resolute stance has clearly caused discomfort within the Netanyahu government, as evidenced by their reckless statements.”
Underlining that Türkiye has racked up $22.5 billion in exports in just one month, while in all of 2002 it has a total of $36 billion in exports, Erdogan said: “Reaching such a level during a period when we suspended foreign trade transactions with Israel is particularly commendable.”
He also expressed Türkiye’s support for pressuring the Israeli government to a cease-fire and ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Highlighting that the region around Türkiye is facing painful days, Erdogan said the Russia-Ukraine war has reached its two-and-a-half-year mark, with the possibility of the conflict ending in the short term out of reach.
On last week’s dramatic prisoner exchange in Ankara involving seven countries, mediated by Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization, President Erdogan said the exchange of 26 people from prisons in the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia, and Belarus went “flawlessly” and set an example for the world.
