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Erdogan: Israeli stance on Al-Quds is 'madness'
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blasted Israel's insistence on its stance to consider the whole Jerusalem (Al-Quds) as its united capital as 'madness.' "This is madness and it does not commit us in any way," AFP quoted Erdogan as saying in a speech at the Arab summit on Saturday. "Al-Quds is the apple of the eye of each and every Muslim ... and we cannot at all accept any Israeli violation in the city or in Muslim sites," the Turkish premier added. The two-day summit hosted by Libya in its Mediterranean city of Sirte kicked off on Saturday to discuss a common strategy to stop the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian land. The Arab League chief Amr Moussa has called for the freeze of settlement expansion in east Al-Quds as a crucial precondition for indirect peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Speaking on the eve of an Arab summit in the Libyan city of Sirte, Moussa said Israel has to scrap its plans to construct 1,600 new housing units in the occupied city before indirect talks with the Palestinians can resume, AFP reported on Friday. Moussa however cautioned that the so-called Middle East peace process may be "a complete failure", calling on Arab states to seek other alternatives. "We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure," Moussa declared to the summit. "It's time to face Israel. We have to have alternative plans because the situation has reached a turning-point," he said. Israel occupied Al-Quds during the six-day war in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community. Posted by: Fred 2010-03-29 |
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