Erdogan blasts Western ‘hypocrisy’

Tashkent, Uzbekistan – AFP

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan hardened his tone against both Israel and the West at a summit of the Economic Cooperation Organisation on Thursday.
The leaders of Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and other Central Asian states met in Uzbekistan for the ECO summit.
While not on the official agenda, Israel’s war against Palestine was in the spotlight.
On October 7, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel responded with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 10,500 people, half of them children, according to the health ministry.
Erdogan used a speech in Tashkent to call on Muslim countries to “raise our voices together to defend our Palestinian cause”.
He also targeted the West for its “hypocrisy”.
“The Israeli administration, which has the full support of Western countries … is bombing schools, hospitals, churches, universities and civilian settlements,” the Turkish leader said.
“Western countries, which constantly talk about human rights, freedoms and democracy, are watching all these Israeli massacres from afar,” he added.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also repeated Tehran’s attacks on the West and Israel in his address to the summit.
He said Israel had committed “terrible crimes” in Gaza and accused the United States of being a “partner in these crimes”, according to his office.
Erdogan and Raisi also discussed the conflict in a separate bilateral meeting, the Turkish president’s office said in a statement.
Ankara is pushing to be a guarantor state in any future ceasefire or peace settlement.