Posted by Turkish Media
May 05, 2024
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Friday that his government has halted all trade with Israel, which amounts to around $9.5 billion.
Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul, the Turkish president stressed that they have “closed the door” to trade with Israel due to the ongoing attack on the Gaza Strip. The trade volume between the two countries amounted to $9.5 billion, Erdoğan said.
The Turkish Ministry of Commerce announced that Ankara has suspended all export and import operations with Israel due to its “aggression against Palestine, which violates international law and human rights.”
President Erdoğan denounced Israel’s continued aggression in the Gaza Strip and also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s moves made a possible rapprochement between Turkey and Israel impossible.
“That meeting had a purpose,” Erdoğan said, referring to the meeting between he and Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, before the conflict between Israel and Gaza flared up again. “But Netanyahu is ruthless. He responded by attacking women and children.”
West
The Turkish leader also criticized the West for its continued support for Israel. “All Western countries, led by the US, support Israel and they spare no effort to sentence the poverty-stricken Palestinians to death.”
Erdoğan further said that continued Israeli aggression against Palestine is unacceptable. “Israel has brutally murdered 40,000 to 45,000 Palestinians so far. As Muslims it is unthinkable that we will do nothing about this.”
Israel has continued its assault on the Gaza Strip since October, where at least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,867 injured. Israel has stormed the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas that killed nearly 1,200 people, according to Tel Aviv.
Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced 85 percent of the territory’s population amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine. According to the UN, 60 percent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Genocide
Israel is accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to ensure humanitarian aid is provided to civilians in Gaza.
However, hostilities have continued unabated and aid remains woefully inadequate to deal with the humanitarian catastrophe, officials said.
© Turkishmedia.nl – All rights reserved | AA | Published: 05-05-2024
