Ankara/Tel Aviv:Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Saturday recalled diplomatic representatives from Turkey "in order to conduct a reassessment of Israel-Turkey relations".
"Given the grave statements coming from Turkey, I have ordered the return of diplomatic representatives there in order to conduct a reevaluation of the relations between Israel and Turkey," he wrote in a statement he made on X, formerly known as Twitter. Cohen's statement came shortly after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan repeated his assertion that Hamas was not a terrorist organization and described Israel as an occupier.
"Israel has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it," Erdogan told the crowd in Istanbul, who waved Palestinian flags...We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal," he said. Erdogan did not elaborate, and his office said it could not comment on the statement.
In his address to hundreds of thousands of people who joined the rally, Erdogan also held Western countries responsible for the deaths in Gaza for failing to stop Israel’s attacks. Turkey recently restored full diplomatic ties with Israel, but the president has stepped up his criticism of the country. He asserted this week that Hamas was not a terrorist organization but a liberation group fighting for its lands and people. Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, was among the participants at the Istanbul rally.