Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to visit Turkey

Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Maliki announced that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will visit Ankara on Tuesday, 5 March.

Saturday March 02 2024 12:08 pm

Duvar English

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the State of Palestine, will visit Turkey on March 5.

Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF) on March 2, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki announced that Abbas would visit Ankara in next week.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Samih Shukri and al-Maliki participated in a panel named "Gaza Contact Group," moderated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Fidan once again underscored that Israel would not be safe unless it declared that it did not want to acquire the Palestinian territories, and said, "It is important to go to the 1967 borders. Only then will the people of Israel truly achieve sustainable security," according to the Anadolu Agency.

Fidan also asked his counterpart Maliki how countries in the region, including Turkey, could play a role in solving the problem with the risk of increasing regional violence and the possibility of war.

Maliki stated that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu's attacks in Gaza "have the purpose of spreading."

"(Netanyahu) believes, however, that it is also important to prolong the war, to expand its scope. He wants this to spread to the West Bank. Every day, military attacks, terrorist attacks are carried out in refugee camps in Palestinian cities, interventions are taking place at the al-Aqsa Mosque."

Maliki noted that Netanyahu had an intention to open a front in the south of Lebanon and added, "If the front is opened here, the front will also be opened in Syria, Iraq and Iran. Netanyahu has the goal of turning the war on Gaza into a territorial war, and he is trying to get the Americans involved in this war."

Between Oct. 7 and Feb. 29, Israel killed at least 30,000 people in Gaza strip. The vast majority of those killed were women and children.