![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/75561_mainimg.jpg\" "\\"75561_mainimg\\"")
<\/p>\nBy Christopher Torchia<\/p>\n
Associated Press<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Erdogan described Turkey as \u201can island of stability\u201d in a region facing difficulties.<\/p>\n
ISTANBUL: Turkey\u2019s leader Tuesday delivered a keynote speech at a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum, more than three years after he stormed off the stage at a previous meeting in Davos, Switzerland during a debate with the Israeli president \u2013 an event that signaled the rising profile of Turkey in its turbulent region.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the conference in Istanbul with an address that highlighted Turkey\u2019s development in the past decade, but also touched on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the way in which he said it had destabilized the region. Without mentioning Israel \u2013onceafirmallyofTurkey\u2013 he said Palestinians suffered bombardment and mass killing and were kept in \u201cthe largest open-air prison in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, Erdogan said, \u201cThe whole region is faced with a lot of anger being pumped into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas followed Erdogan at the podium, sharply criticizing Israel for the deadlocked peace process, and touting his administration\u2019s efforts to lay the economic and legal foundations for a modern state.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we are neither at war nor at peace [with Israel],\u201d Abbas said. \u201cThis condition could extend for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
The forum holds its main, annual meeting in Davos. Erdogan said he would not return there after the 2009 dispute with Israeli President Shimon Peres, who had passionately defended a three-week offensive against Hamas militants, launched in reaction to eight years of rocket fire aimed at Israel.<\/p>\n
In his speech, Erdogan described Turkey, which has forced the military out of politics but still faces internal challenges such as a Kurdish rebellion, as \u201can island of stability in a region that is surrounded by major difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n
In introductory remarks, Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum, placed special emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at a time when the world is concerned about the possibility another global economic downturn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a special pleasure to welcome you today,\u201d he said to Erdogan before turning to the Palestinian question. \u201cWe are all very eager to hear from you. Is there any hope that this problem will be solved soon?\u201d<\/p>\n
Peres did not attend the Istanbul meeting. Borge Brende, a managing director of the World Economic Forum, said he was pleased to see Israeli business executives and analysts at the meeting, which is aimed at, according to a slogan, \u201cimproving the state of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to interaction on head of government, or head of state level between Israel and Turkey, I think this is something that has to be solved and dealt with bilaterally between the two countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on June 06, 2012, on page 6.<\/p>\n
via THE DAILY STAR :: Business :: International :: Erdogan keynotes at WEF hosted in Istanbul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Christopher Torchia Associated Press Erdogan described Turkey as \u201can island of stability\u201d in a region facing difficulties. ISTANBUL: Turkey\u2019s leader Tuesday delivered a keynote speech at a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum, more than three years after he stormed off the stage at a previous meeting in Davos, Switzerland during a debate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":53993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[997,7401],"class_list":["post-53989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-davos","tag-wef"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}