Türkiye's Erdogan Says Trust in EU Shaken by Its Stance on Israel-Hamas War

In this handout photograph taken and released by Kazakhstan's Presidential Press Service on November 3, 2023, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the 10th Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States, in Astana. (Photo by Handout / Kazakhstan’s Presidential Press Service / AFP)
In this handout photograph taken and released by Kazakhstan's Presidential Press Service on November 3, 2023, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the 10th Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States, in Astana. (Photo by Handout / Kazakhstan’s Presidential Press Service / AFP)
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Türkiye's Erdogan Says Trust in EU Shaken by Its Stance on Israel-Hamas War

In this handout photograph taken and released by Kazakhstan's Presidential Press Service on November 3, 2023, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the 10th Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States, in Astana. (Photo by Handout / Kazakhstan’s Presidential Press Service / AFP)
In this handout photograph taken and released by Kazakhstan's Presidential Press Service on November 3, 2023, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the 10th Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States, in Astana. (Photo by Handout / Kazakhstan’s Presidential Press Service / AFP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the European Union (EU) had not taken a fair stance on the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza and as a result trust in the bloc had been "deeply shaken", broadcaster Haberturk and others reported on Saturday.

The support shown by European countries for Israel stemmed from "their debts" over the Holocaust, Erdogan added in comments to reporters on a return flight from Kazakhstan on Friday.

Erdogan revealed that his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi would visit Türkiye at the end of November to hold talks on Gaza, and that he would also attend a summit of Muslim countries in Riyadh later this month.

He stated there would no longer be any trust in the global system if Israel was not stopped and held accountable for "its war crimes and human rights violations".

He also said the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) would push for a ceasefire and discuss the parameters of such a move during its summit in Riyadh later this month.

Gaza must be part of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state once the Israel-Hamas war is over, Erdogan added, saying Ankara would not support models "gradually erasing Palestinians from history".

He said his intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Hamas.

He stressed he would not take Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a counterpart, but added Ankara would not sever its ties with Israel either.



Iranian Authorities Execute Kurdish Man after 15 Years in Prison

Activists warn of a new surge in hangings in Iran (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
Activists warn of a new surge in hangings in Iran (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
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Iranian Authorities Execute Kurdish Man after 15 Years in Prison

Activists warn of a new surge in hangings in Iran (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
Activists warn of a new surge in hangings in Iran (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Iranian authorities on Thursday executed Kurdish man Kamran Sheikheh, the last surviving defendant in a case linked to a cleric's killing in 2008, rights groups said.
Sheikheh, charged of “corruption on Earth,” was put to death in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said in separate statements.
He was arrested in 2009 and was sentenced to death with six other prisoners by a branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh.
Sheikheh's six co-defendants had all been executed in separate hangings between November 2023 and May 2024.
Amnesty International has said they had been sentenced to death “in a grossly unfair trial” that had been “marred by allegations of torture and other ill-treatment,” according to AFP.
IHR described Sheikheh as a “political prisoner” who had been sentenced to death “based on torture-tainted confessions in a grossly unfair trial.”
The execution “was unlawful according to international law and the Islamic republic's own laws, amounting to an extrajudicial killing,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
HRANA said that the proceedings related to the killing of an imam of a mosque in the northwestern city of Mahabad in September 2008.
Sheikheh and the six others were arrested in connection with the killing in January and February 2010 and sentenced to death in 2018.
Activists say that Iran's use of the death penalty disproportionately targets members of the Kurdish, Arab and Baluch ethnic minorities in western and southeast Iran.
In one of the latest cases, rights groups said the Revolutionary Court of Tehran had sentenced Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish woman held in the capital's Evin prison, to death on charges of “rebellion.”
Earlier this month, Iranian authorities sentenced to death another Kurdish woman, Sharifeh Mohammadi, on the same charges over accusations of links to an outlawed Kurdish organization.
IHR warned that Sheikheh's execution is part of a new surge in hangings in Iran marking the end of an apparent lull coinciding with snap presidential elections several weeks ago.
The rights group said at least 20 people have been executed since Saturday.
Iran executed 853 people in 2023, the highest number recorded since 2015, representing a 48% increase from 2022 in the wake of the protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
The spike in death penalties has continued into 2024, with at least 95 recorded executions by March 20, according to Amnesty International.