, has announced that he might visit Palestine on September 1, when Turkey celebrates World Peace Day, the Halk TV news website reported.){kind=link}
Özgür Özel, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has announced that he might visit Palestine on September 1, when Turkey celebrates World Peace Day, the Halk TV news website reported.
Journalist İsmail Saymaz from Halk TV on Tuesday quoted Özel as saying that he will visit Palestine at the first opportunity after he recovers from an injury to his foot suffered in a recent home accident.
“Depending on my condition, I will be free of this cast in 10 days. … For example, I might go [to Palestine] on September 1, World Peace Day,” Saymaz quoted Özel as saying.
September 1 marks the World Day of Peace in Turkey despite the fact that September 21 is observed worldwide as the International Day of Peace.
Due to his injured foot, Özel missed a speech Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered during a special session of the Turkish parliament last Thursday. He said he later requested a meeting with Abbas but that he had already returned to Palestine, and thus had a 25-minute phone conversation with him on Sunday.
Abbas’s speech last week came as health ministry officials in Gaza said the death toll from Israel’s assault there had surpassed 40,000 people.
Abbas is based in Ramallah in the West Bank, while the Gaza Strip is controlled by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Apart from a handful of humanitarian workers, nobody is allowed to enter the enclave. Abbas has not been to Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007.
According to Saymaz, Özel expressed his support for Abbas in the phone conversation, stating that he is sensitive about Palestine as vice president of Socialist International (SI), the worldwide organization of political parties seeking to establish democratic socialism. He also asked for an appropriate date to visit Palestine.
Abbas acknowledged the concern the CHP has shown for Palestine since the term of the party’s late leader Bülent Ecevit, who served as Turkey’s prime minister between 1974 and 2002, and told Özel that he should not ask for an appropriate date, but just inform him when he would be coming.
The developments come after the CHP leader announced in April that he had postponed his visit to the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah due to “the latest developments” in the region at the time, referring to the growing tensions caused by Iran’s launch of its first-ever direct assault on Israeli territory in retaliation for a deadly strike by Israeli forces on Tehran’s embassy complex in Damascus on April 1.
Iran’s airstrikes on Israel had led to cancellations or disruption of flights to Israel and surrounding countries.
Tensions have been running high in the Middle East since October 7, when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.
Özel said last month 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.
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 earlier that he would not meet with any members of Hamas because he thinks their attack on Israel on October 7 was an act of terrorism.
He also described the retaliatory attacks launched by Israel on Gaza after October 7 as “state terrorism.”