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On Monday, Turkey declared three days of nationwide mourning for Palestinian victims of Israeli military aggression in Gaza and denounced the assault as a “massacre”. Turkey and Israel have diplomatic ties, but relations between the two were downgraded after Israeli commando raid on an activist ship from Turkey being sent to the Gaza Strip in 2010.
In televised comments from Ankara, Deputy Prime Minister BulentArinc said, “We condemn Israel’s massacre of the Palestinian people”.
“In a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, three days of mourning have been declared starting from tomorrow (Tuesday)”, he said.
In the past few days, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has portrayed himself as the chief global defender of Gaza and the Palestinian cause, and slammed Israel’s aggression in Gaza As “genocide” of Palestinians. He had also compared the mentality of a few in Israel to Adolf Hitler, causing resentment and anger in the United States and Israel.
“Turkey has maintained a principled stand against Israel’s aggression. It has stood by the righteous, not by the powerful.We are backing the truce talks, but Israel should stop arbitrary practices that can be considered as mass retribution and realize that the national security can only be restored through fair peace”, Arinc said.
The announcement of national mourning for three days for events outside Turkish borders. Turkey had also declared a three-day national mourning for this May’s mining disaster in Soma that led to the deaths of 301 people.
According to Arinc, before their assault on Gaza, Israel was close to signing a deal which would have normalized relations with Turkey, but the deal was for now off the agenda.
“The talks had almost been finalized but then these incidents occurred. It is not possible to sign (a deal) after all that happened.It is not possible for us to sign a compensation deal with the Israeli side in the face of this violence that virtually turned into a genocide”, he said.