May 15, 2018•Update: May 15, 2018
By Mehmet Tosun, Meltem Ozturk, Ismail Cimen
ANKARA
The leader of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu said the U.S. was no longer able to bring peace to the Middle East, only “blood, tears, and death”.
Speaking at his party’s parliamentary group meeting, Kilicdaroglu said the U.S. had completely lost its role as a mediator in the Middle East because it has sided with the Israeli government.
“One would wish that the whole world could stand up against this massacre. These protests are made with low voices,” he said.
Kilicdaroglu also criticized the Arab world for not uniting for Palestine.
“There is no bigger shame than that in history. While we [Turkey] are embracing, they [Arab World] cannot embrace [Palestine] as much as we do. Protesting with low voices is not the kind of reaction we can swallow when people in their own homeland are being murdered,” he added.
Thousands of Palestinians gathered on the Gaza Strip’s eastern border Monday to take part in mass rallies to commemorate the Nakba anniversary and protest the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 60 Palestinian demonstrators have been martyred by cross-border Israeli gunfire in one of the deadliest single-day massacres in the country's history.
Since the border rallies began on March 30, more than 100 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed by cross-border Israeli gunfire, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The rallies were expected to culminate on Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of Israel's establishment -- an event Palestinians refer to as the "Nakba" or "the Catastrophe".
Last week, the Israeli government said the ongoing border protests constituted a “state of war” in which international humanitarian law did not apply.
Meanwhile, a CHP delegation paid a solidarity visit to Faed Mustafa, Palestine’s ambassador in Ankara.
After the visit, CHP parliament deputy group chairman Ozgur Ozel told reporters, “Our visit is meant to express that we are crying with the Palestinian people for the great pain yesterday.”
“Today we clearly state that the assembly's agenda should be only Palestine,” Ozel added.
