Turkey president meets Hamas political chief

Turkey’s president received in Istanbul the political chief of Hamas on Saturday.

The closed-door meeting was held between Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh at the Vahdettin Pavilion, lasting one hour and 15 minutes.

Erdogan had held a phone call with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday, when he reiterated Ankara’s support for Palestine in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan for the Middle East.

The two leaders had also discussed the latest developments and issues in the region.

US President Donald Trump announced last Tuesday his so-called plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with no Palestinian officials present at the event held at the White House.

During the event, Trump referred to Jerusalem as “Israel’s undivided capital.” The plan unilaterally annuls previous UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue and suggests giving Israel almost everything it has been demanding.

Read: Palestinian Authority says it cut ‘sacred’ security ties with Israel, US

On Friday Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, slammed Arab and Muslim leaders for accepting or remaining silent on the issue of the US “deal of the century”.

Erdogan reiterated his country’s strong opposition to the deal announced at the White House by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, where ambassadors of three Arab countries were in attendance.

“We will never recognise or accept the deal as it aims to annex occupied Palestinian lands,” he confirmed at a meeting of provincial heads of the Justice and Development Party in Ankara.

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