Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, held a meeting in Ankara on Wednesday July 26, with the Palestinian president and the head of Hamas ahead of a significant gathering of Palestinian factions scheduled for the weekend.
Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday spoke in Ankara with the Palestinian president and the head of Hamas in the run-up to a crucial meeting of Palestinian factions set for the weekend.
Erdogan, who has good ties with Mahmud Abbas of the Fatah party and Hamas’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, has said his government will do its best to push for intra-Palestinian reconciliation.
An official in the Palestinian presidency told AFP that Abbas “invited all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to attend the meeting of the heads of the factions in Cairo” on Sunday.
Sources close to the Fatah party and Hamas said that the Ankara meeting organized by Erdogan focused on Palestinian unity and how to end divisions.
Turkey is home to prominent Hamas officials even though the Palestinian group, which controls the Gaza Strip, is considered a terror organization by much of the West.
Haniyeh and the group’s former chief, Khaled Meshal visits Turkey often.
Erdogan is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause and a fierce critic of Israel, but he altered regional strategy by initiating an outreach to Israel after several years of tensions.
Khalil Wakim, with AFP
