2023-11-17 18:02:18
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Berlin. “Israel’s right to exist is irrefutable for us,” said Scholz on Friday evening. Israel has “the right under international law to defend itself.” Addressing Erdogan, Scholz said it was “no secret” that “we have different, sometimes very different, perspectives on the current conflict.”
However, Erdogan and he shared “concerns about a conflagration in the Middle East,” said Scholz at the press conference, which took place before a conversation and dinner between the two politicians. “Every life is worth the same,” he added. The Federal Government is also concerned about the “suffering of the Palestinian civilian population”. The conversation with Erdogan should be about how “further escalation in the region” can be prevented.
Erdogan, for his part, denounced Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip in the German Chancellery. There, “everything was razed to the ground.” Although “everyone” is currently talking about Hamas, the military power of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization is not comparable to that of Israel. For a solution to the conflict in the Middle East, a “two-state solution within the 1967 borders” appears necessary.
Erdogan had previously been received by Germany’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. According to the Federal President’s Office, Steinmeier made the “German position emphatically clear” to the Turkish head of state. A spokeswoman explained on the online service X that Steinmeier had “underlined the classification of Hamas’ attack on Israel as a terrorist attack and Hamas as a terrorist organization.” He also “highlighted Israel’s right to exist and its right to self-defense.”
For his part, Erdogan told Steinmeier, according to the Turkish presidential office, that Israel’s “attacks in Palestinian areas” must end. The Turkish head of state continued that it was important for the “entire world” to react to the “human rights violations”.
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