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Turkiye expresses 'deep concern' over increasing tensions in Jerusalem, West Bank

March 22, 2023 at 2:18 pm

Hundreds of Muslims arrive in Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform prayer, in Jerusalem [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

Turkiye, on Wednesday, expressed “deep concern” over the increasing tensions in Jerusalem and West Bank as the Muslim’s holy month of Ramadan nears, Anadolu News Agency reports.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry lambasted the “baseless, irresponsible and provocative claims” made by some Israeli politicians on the Palestinian State and people, “which are incompatible with political, historical or current realities.”

Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in a speech Sunday in the French capital, Paris, denied the existence of the Palestinian people, saying the Palestinians were “an invention” from the last century and people like himself and his grandparents were the “real Palestinians.”

Ankara further condemned Israel’s annulling part of a 2005 law that had ordered Jewish residents’ evacuation from four illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank.

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