ANKARA, Turkey
Turkey's Prime Minister and presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Israel to immediately halt its attacks on Gaza which have left more than 100 innocent Palestinians dead.
While presenting his election manifesto at the Halic Congress Center in Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan said that one of three conditions needed to normalize Turkey's severed relations with Israel was an end to the blockade of Gaza.
Erdogan said: “While our brothers and sisters are being bombed and killed in Palestine and Gaza we cannot normalize relations with Israel."
“We will continue to loudly voice our support for the Palestinian cause.”
At least 100 Gazans have been killed and hundreds more injured since July 7 in a series of unrelenting Israeli airstrikes that continued on Friday.
Israel claims the offensive is aimed at halting rocket fire emanating from the embattled Gaza Strip, which is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians.
Violent crackdown
Referring to the Syrian civil war, Erdogan said: “We will continue to support the Syrian people until their legitimate demands are met.”
Syria has been gripped by almost constant fighting since the Bashar al-Assad regime launched a violent crackdown in response to anti-government protests back in March 2011, triggering a conflict that has spiraled into a bloody civil war.
The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights said in its July 3 report that nearly 135,000 people, including 15,149 children and 13,695 women, have been killed in air and ground operations since March 2011 by President Bashar al-Assad's regime in opposition-held areas across Syria.
About 4,892 had been tortured to death, it claimed.
'Prosperous society'
Erdogan, the Ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's candidate for presidency, also presented his vision for the position and announced his election manifesto entitled: The New Turkey on its Way, and sub-titled: A Prosperous Society.
Erdogan lauded the accomplishments of his government within the last 12 years and said he would continue to serve his people if elected president, and would be the president of all of Turkey's 77 million people.
The Republican People’s Party and the Nationalist Movement Party have chosen Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the 71-year-old former head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as their candidate for the elections -- the first in Turkey where the president will be chosen by popular vote.
The Peoples' Democracy Party has nominated Selahattin Demirtas – the former Co-Chairman of the Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party - as its presidential candidate.
Turkish voters will go to the polls on 10 August.
Should none of the candidates take more than 50 percent of the votes, a second round will take place on 24 August between the top two candidates.
Call on UN to help stop Israeli offensive on Gaza
Erdogan said in a phone conversation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, that the ceasefire agreement signed between Israel and Palestine in 2012 should be reinstated, according to Turkish Foreign Ministry officials.
He said that the Israeli government needed to understand that national security could only be ensured through a fair and comprehensive peace.
Following the conversation, Erdogan also had a phone conversation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, during which the two leaders agreed that the Israeli offensive must end.
Erdogan and Rouhani both stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire and provision of humanitarian aid to the Gazans.
'Revenge attack'
The two leaders also agreed that the foreign ministers of both countries would stay in close contact in order to take the initiative in helping halt the attacks and provide humanitarian aid.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 106 Palestinians have been killed and 750 injured since Israel's operation began on Tuesday, following a rise in tensions after three Israeli teenagers were found murdered last month and a Palestinian teenager was killed days later in a suspected revenge attack.
Israeli jets have carried out air attacks while Hamas has reportedly fired rockets into Tel Aviv and as far north as Haifa, 130km away from Gaza.
There have been no reports of Israeli fatalities.
"It is unacceptable for citizens on both sides to permanently live in fear of the next aerial attack," Ban said in an emergency UN Security Council session convened pm Thursday amid fears of a ground invasion by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Embattled enclave
Ban warned of the risk of "an all-out escalation" of conflict in Gaza amid Israel's four-day-old offensive and called for a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, adding that the threat of an Israeli ground offensive was "palpable", and an escalation was "preventable only if Hamas stops rocket firing (rockets)."
Israeli warplanes have pounded the Gaza Strip over the past four days as part of a military offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" – with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the embattled coastal enclave.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire short-range rockets into Israel – without causing any fatalities – in response.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry claimed on Thursday that at least 681 rockets had been fired at Israel from Gaza since 7 June.
Call on ISIL to release Turkish hostages
Erdogan called on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants in Iraq to free Turkish nationals they seized last month.
His comments on Friday came a month after ISIL fighters seized 49 Turkish consulate staff, including the consul-general and family members, in the Iraqi city of Mosul, a day after 31 Turkish truck drivers were also abducted.
Erdogan said: "We are patiently watching and striving for the release of our hostage brothers captured by the ISIL in Iraq."
“However, we are about to lose our patience and call the ISIL to immediately free our fellow citizens.”
“There are women and children among the hostages. A Muslim cannot do such a cruelty to his Muslim brother,” he said.
At least 300,000 residents have fled Mosul since ISIL seized the city last month.
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