Gaza Premier set to meet Turkey PM today
1 January 2012
Agence France-Presse
ANKARA, 1 JAN: Gaza’s Hamas Premier Ismail Haniya will be in Turkey today as part of his first official regional tour since the Islamists’ 2007 power seizure in the Palestinian enclave, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Mr Haniya will meet with Turkish Prime Minister Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his residence in Istanbul at 1400 GMT, according to the news agency.
Mr Haniya’s visit comes after Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas’s talks in Turkey last month. On Friday, foreign minister Mr Ahmet Davutoglu said every Palestinian was welcome in Turkey.
Ankara has sought to mediate in efforts to reconcile Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, braving Israel’s ire over contacts with the Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan’s government insists that peace cannot be achieved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Hamas is excluded from the process. The Turkish Premier has rejected the “terrorist” label for Hamas, defending the Islamist group as “resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land.”
Since 2007, the Palestinian territories have been politically divided into two separate territories, with Abbas’s Fatah largely ruling the West Bank and Hamas governing Gaza. In May, following years of bitter rivalry, the two factions signed a reconciliation deal.
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