 has said he will visit the Palestinian de facto capital city of Ramallah on April 15 and meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas while refusing to meet with any representatives from the militant group Hamas.){kind=link}
The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said he will visit the Palestinian de facto capital city of Ramallah on April 15 and meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas while refusing to meet with any representatives from the militant group Hamas.
Özgür Özel made his remarks at a fast-breaking dinner during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a public square in İzmir on Tuesday evening.
Özel said he would meet with Abbas in Ramallah on April 15 if there is no change in his schedule, adding that his party believes the solution to the ongoing conflict in the region lies in the establishment of an independent state of Palestine on the basis of its 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
According to Özel, his party, which he said has always been interested in the settlement of the Palestinian conflict, will continue to fight for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and peace in the region.
Unlike the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the CHP does not see Hamas militants as “liberators” fighting for their land.
Özel said he will not meet with any members of Hamas because he thinks their attack on Israel on October 7, which left around 1,200 people dead, was an act of terrorism.
He described the retaliatory attacks launched by Israel on Gaza after October 7, which have so far led to more than 31,000 deaths and massive devastation in the Palestinian enclave, as “state terrorism.”
“Whoever attacks innocent people is committing an act of terrorism. What Hamas did is an act of terrorism, what Israel did afterwards is state terrorism. They are acts that can reach the level of genocide. I condemn both of them,” said Özel.
Meanwhile, President Erdoğan reiterated his support for Hamas over the weekend, saying that Ankara “firmly backs” the militant group.
“No one can make us treat Hamas as a terrorist organization,” he said in a speech in İstanbul. “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”
Erdoğan has been one of the most virulent critics of Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, calling Israel a “terrorist state” and accusing it of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza.