Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that stopping the massacres in the Palestinian Gaza Strip is "a duty on our shoulders," stressing that "we have not and will not leave our brothers in Gaza alone without protection."
This came in a speech delivered during his participation in the opening of a number of vital projects in the northeastern state of Rize.
Erdogan added that "it is our duty to save our Palestinian brothers from Israeli oppression, and to stop the massacres committed in Gaza before the eyes of the world."
"One of the imperatives of our responsibility towards history is to speak out against the crimes of those who support the perpetrators of these immoral and despicable massacres in Gaza," he said.
Erdogan announced yesterday that he would cut off contacts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan said that Netanyahu is no longer a person to talk to and is directly responsible for what is happening in Gaza, stressing that he is a person who also angers the Israeli people, as he has supported his citizens and seeks to mobilize support for the massacres he is committing in the Strip through the use of religious expressions.
The Turkish president affirmed his country's support for initiatives that bring stability and peace to the region, adding that Turkey does not support plans that target the lives of Palestinians and seek to remove them from the stage of history.