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full screen Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara in 2012. Photo: AP/TT
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is to visit Turkey in the coming days.
– The leader of the Palestinian cause will be my guest this weekend, says Erdogan according to AFP.
The meeting will take place in Istanbul on Saturday, according to the Turkish television channel NTV.
The two last met last July, when Erdogan invited Haniyeh to the presidential palace in Ankara together with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Erdogan has been one of the most outspoken critics in the Muslim world of Israel’s war. He has called Israel a “terrorist state” and Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza”.
The Turkish Ministry of Commerce has also chosen to limit the country’s exports to Israel “until Israel declares an immediate ceasefire”. Turkey has also made mass arrests of people accused of spying for Israel.
Last week, Erdogan sent his condolences to Haniyeh, after the hardline Hamas leader’s sons and grandsons were killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.