Newsletters
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel's government on Friday of pursuing deliberate provocations to destabilize the wider Middle East, and urged Muslim-majority nations to deepen their alliances in response, in remarks delivered at a religious event marking the week of the Prophet Muhammad's birth.
Speaking at the Halic Congress Center in Istanbul during the "Mevlid-i Nebi Week Program," Erdogan said what he described as an ideology of Zionism was endangering not only Israel's neighbors but anyone who supports regional peace and humanitarian values.
"Israel's war-addicted current government is trying every kind of provocation to drag our entire region into instability, starting with its neighbors," Erdogan said. He characterized Zionism as a "radical, occupying, genocidal ideology" and said Türkiye's criticism of what he called its expansionist aims was made on behalf of all peoples in the region, regardless of religious affiliation.
He said Gaza had been turned into what he called the world's largest children's cemetery, and claimed that even kites flown there were treated as security threats and blocked. He said millions of Palestinians were struggling to survive under severe conditions without access to basic necessities.
Erdogan also addressed the situation in Lebanon, saying 1.3 million people there had been forced to leave their homes because of Israeli attacks. He said more than 4,000 people had been killed, most of them women and children, and that over 12,000 Lebanese had been wounded.
Drawing a historical comparison, Erdogan said that international silence in the face of atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot had come at a heavy cost to civilians in the 20th century, and argued that a similar failure to respond was now being repeated in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. He said neither global institutions nor the international community had shown the will to stop the killing.
Erdogan said Muslim nations could not rely on outside powers to protect their interests and needed to become strong and self-reliant. "There is good in alliance," he said, adding that Türkiye was working to expand alliances and reduce disputes both domestically and across the Islamic world.
He said the goal was for the Muslim world to act with the cohesion of "bricks in a wall," and framed the effort as extending to Türkiye's own population of 86 million people, whom he said the government was working to unite further.
The event also included religious commemorations tied to Mevlid-i Nebi, an annual observance in the Islamic calendar marking the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Erdogan's remarks included literary and poetic references, among them an anecdote from late Turkish literary figure Nihat Sami Banarli and verses by poet Mehmet Akif Inan, both invoked in connection with the week's religious themes.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
