Muslim
countries have gathered in Turkey's capital, Istanbul to forge a reach
an agreement on how to counter Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem
as capital of Israel.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
President Donald Trump
Leaders and senior officials from Muslim countries are expected to
hold an extraordinary summit Wednesday in Istanbul, Turkey to forge a
consensus to a U.S. decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli
capital.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the extraordinary
session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as the
organization’s term-president to produce a unified Islamic position.
The Turkish leader has been one of the most outspoken critics of
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision which also includes starting
immediately the process of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem.
“Declaring it (Jerusalem) as a capital and relocating the (U.S.) embassy has no validity for us,” Erdogan has said.
Addressing a meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party in
Turkey’s central Anatolia city of Sivas on Sunday, he also called
Israel “an occupying and a terrorist state.”
Israel took over East Jerusalem, revered by Muslims as the third
holiest site in Islam, in the 1967 war, and declared unilaterally the
whole city as its eternal capital.
However, this move has never been accepted by the international
community, which has called for reaching a final settlement of the
dispute through Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday criticized some Arab countries for “refraining from challenging Trump,” noting that the OIC summit is seeking recognition of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Most OIC members are expected to attend, including the Palestinian
president, the Iranian president, the Lebanese president and the
Jordanian king.
Prior to the summit, the Turkish president met on Tuesday with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Istanbul. The closed-door meeting
lasted for one hour, and no statement was made thereafter, according to
Turkish media.
The OIC is the second largest inter-governmental organization after
the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four
continents.
Trump’s announcement over the contested city has sparked days of
violent clashes in Gaza Strip and West Bank as well as protests in other
Arab countries. Several rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel over
the past few days.
According to a health official in Gaza, clashes between Palestinian
young protestors and Israeli soldiers continued on Tuesday at the
border areas between Gaza and Israel, with five moderately injured by
live bullets so far.
-Xinhua
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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