FM Fidan in New York for UN meeting on Palestine
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived in New York on Monday to attend the U.N. Security Council for a meeting on the situation in the Middle East, Turkish diplomatic sources said.
Fidan will join other diplomats in New York for the session on Jan. 23, which will address the situation in the Middle East, including Palestine, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
He will also hold bilateral meetings during the visit.
Israel has killed more than 25,000 people in the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.
The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while more than half of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed, according to the U.N.
Türkiye has been a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause and continues diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
Ankara’s stand with Palestine led to a deterioration of ties with Israel, though the two sides took mutual steps for a thaw right before the start of the new round of conflict on Oct. 7.
Relations with Western allies who hold a definite pro-Israel stance too went into a downward spiral again.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has since declared Israel “a terrorist state” for its indiscriminate bombing and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the “Butcher of Gaza.”
He has also described Hamas as a “liberation organization” much to the chagrin of the United States and the EU, who classify it as a terrorist organization.
