MOSCOW - Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul has said, ''we consider Israel's demolishing houses of civilians in Gaza and killing of more than 30 people in its operation in Gaza an extremely dangerous development.''
In an interview with the A.A, Gul who is currently in Russian capital Moscow to attend meeting of the Middle East Quartet which was formed by the Russia, the United States, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations to discuss recent developments in Palestine, and with the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), said on Thursday, ''as you know, extremely dangerous developments occurred in Gaza yesterday. We are extremely concerned about recent developments in Palestine and recent acts of Israel in the region.''
Describing Israel's demolishing houses of civilians as an extremely dangerous development, Gul said, ''we harshly condemned such events. Peace cannot be provided in the region this way. As we have been waiting for implementation of the road map, Israel's following such a policy is unacceptable. We harshly condemn yesterday's events in Gaza.''
When asked whether Israel's actions would affect Turkey's efforts to further improve its relations with Israel, Gul told the A.A, ''all these actions have, of course, affected the whole region.''
Recalling that he would have the chance to meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia for the first time after his appointment, Gul said, ''after the bilateral meeting with Lavrov, we will hold talks with the other ministers of the OIC. We will discuss the Palestine problem and recent developments in Iraq.''
''The recent process has started as a result of initiatives of current OIC term president Malaysia. I sent a letter to the foreign ministers of Malaysia a few months ago. The letter was about Iraq and Middle East. In the letter, I called on Malaysia to launch initiatives as the term president of the OIC. A summit took place in Malaysia last year. We explained our views once again at the summit,'' he said.
Gul said, ''we welcome Malaysia's decision to hold talks with the Middle East Quartet as the term president of the OIC. A committee was formed on the ministerial level under the structure of the OIC to this end. Foreign ministers of Malaysia, Senegal, Morocco, Palestine and Turkey take place in the committee. The committee held its first meetings in current European Union (EU) term president Ireland yesterday. State Minister Besir Atalay represented Turkey at the meeting.''
''The OIC delegation will hold talks in Russia today. The delegation is scheduled to hold meetings in the United States and the United Nations next week,'' he said.
Gul added, ''during our visit to Moscow, we will have the chance to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. We will assess the bilateral relations between Turkey and Russia in detail. Meanwhile, the Cyprus issue will be high on our agenda since Russia is one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.''
(UK-AÖ) 20.05.2004