Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has voiced a restrained desire to visit the Gaza Strip in the next few weeks, noting that the visit would take place according to a final assessment by the Foreign Ministry on the issue.
20 July 2011, Wednesday
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has voiced a restrained desire to visit the Gaza Strip in the next few weeks, noting that the visit would take place according to a final assessment by the Foreign Ministry on the issue, Todays Zaman reports.
| “The definite time of our visit to Egypt has not been set yet, but we have a desire to visit Gaza after visiting Egypt,” Erdoğan said on Tuesday in response to a question at a press conference before departing for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) for an official visit. The question stemmed from news reports that appeared first in the foreign media over the weekend.
The Hebrew-language daily Maariv said political sources had confirmed that Erdoğan sought and received approval from Egypt’s ruling military council to arrive on July 25 in the Gaza Strip. “We have not been officially notified,” Hamas’ foreign minister in Gaza, Muhammad Awad, however, told Palestinian news agency Ma’an on Sunday. |