Erdogan says West ignores law when ‘Muslim blood spilled’
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has slammed the Western governments’ response to Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza. He says the West is not taking action because the “blood spilled is Muslims’ blood.”
“What happened to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?” he asked. “They [the West] won’t look at it if it doesn’t serve their purpose. Why? Because the blood being spilled is Muslim blood.”
Yesterday, Erdogan cancelled a trip to Israel and said he regretted shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly in New York last month.
Separately, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority – which administers the occupied West Bank but not Gaza – described Israel’s air strikes as “war of revenge”.
Speaking in the Netherlands at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Riyad al-Maliki said the bombing was worse than previous Israeli attacks, and called for a ceasefire.