WASHINGTON
Turkey's prime minister on Friday said that Hamas and Fatah reconciliation was a must for Palestine-Israel normalization process.
"We have to acknowledge one fact within the Palestinian-Israeli normalization process, which is first of all, Hamas and Fatah should reconcile with each other. If not, negotiations with Israel cannot yield any results as it did not until now", said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, replying to questions after he delivered a speech titled "Global Order and Justice in the 21st Century" at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) in Washington.
Saying, "We cannot differentiate Hamas and Fatah, both are brothers in heart,", Erdogan expressed that besides Gaza, he would also visit the West Bank in June.
He added that he would plan the date of the visit when he returned to Turkey.
No peace without Hamas
Referring to 2009 Davos Summit, he said, "As you know, we had a Davos adventure, where I explained to Tony Blair, then the director of Quartet that if Hamas was not on the negotiation table, there will be no peace. And he told this during the session in the summit, however, we did not reach at a conclusion still."
Defining the system in Palestine as "controlled democracy", Erdogan stated that Hamas was obstructed in many ways after it had won the elections in 2006. "Hamas has not been allowed to use the authority given by the public. There are taxes to be paid, but not allowed to do so. Economic pressure started to be applied immediately. Therefore there is a new process now. An immediate national reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah is important in terms of determining the negotiator party with Israel," said Erdogan.
Erdogan added that Turkey would do everything falling under its responsibility within this process, and added, "I believe we can help. We can affect to some extent."
World religious leaders to unite against Syria massacre
Upon a question, Erdogan said, "religious leaders should unite, the representatives of Islam, Christianity and Judaism should come together and give a common message to world about what kind of a stance to be taken against the massacre in Syria,"
Stating that he was anti-war, however at the point where all other means turned out to be useless, war would mean justice, Erdogan said that the role of world religious leaders was very critical before the decision to apply military means.
No FTA between US and EU without Turkey
Regarding the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to be signed between Turkey and the US, Erdogan said that this was a move within FTA between the US and the European Union, and would take time to achieve. "However", added Erdogan, "Turkey is a member of Customs Union. Therefore within this process, Turkey will definitely take part in. The EU and the US should consider Turkey in their evaluations, as well."
China to improve life standard in East Turkestan
In response to a question about East Turkestan, Erdogan stressed that there were positive developments for improving life standards in terms of human rights by the new Chinese administration and he was hopeful about the process through a dialogue between Turkey and China.
Erdogan said his country's relations with Israel cannot go back to normal unless the Jewish state met Ankara's three key demands to restore ties.
"This a process that has just begun and we are at the beginning of the road. We had three headlines here: The first one is apology, which has been solved. The second is compensation, which is still being discussed. And third is the lifting of the embargo on Palestine. Without these three, we won't take those steps,"he told.
Relations between the two former allies in the Middle East spent three years at a historic low after a deadly raid Israeli commandos conducted on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May 2010 killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American national.
In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended a US-brokered apology and the two countries' officials have held at least two rounds of talks over flotilla compensation.
Civilian massacres in Syria
Erdogan accused international community of being a bystander and watching from the sidelines civilian massacres in Syria, saying that world needed "a new order of justice".
"A global system that remains mute to massacres in Syria cannot claim to be fair and humanitarian," he said, adding that the United Nations should be overhauled to have "a system that produces justice, otherwise it cannot offer peace to humanity."
