Türkiye's AK Party to hold conference on Palestine

By Huseyin Cem Dagistanli

Türkiye's Justice and Development (AK) Party next Tuesday will hold a conference on the future of Palestine, a top party official said.

“We will be holding the Future of Palestine Conference on Oct. 15," Zafer Sirakaya, the party's vice chair for foreign affairs, told reporters at AK Party headquarters.

Stating that guests from abroad, including Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, will also attend, Sirakaya said the role of international law in the future of Palestine will also be discussed during the event, to be held in the capital Ankara.

He added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also the ruling AK Party chair, will also attend.

Decrying the failure of both the UN and humanity in the situation in Gaza, Sirakaya said it is "extremely important and valuable to ensure a cease-fire in Gaza quickly, to realize the exchange of hostages and prisoners as soon as possible, and to establish a sovereign and independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital with geographical integrity within the 1967 borders.”

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, Israel has continued a brutal offensive on Gaza following a cross-border incursion by Palestinian group Hamas last October.

More than 42,000 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and some 98,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

*Writing by Serdar Dincel in Istanbul