JERUSALEM - Turkey and Israel pledged Sunday to work together in the global war against terrorism as Ankara's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid his first visit to the Jewish state.
Ahead of a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon, Erdogan held talks with President Moshe Katsav where he stressed the need for solidarity between the two countries whose ties have been through a testing time.
"We have to drain the swamp of terrorism. We have to show solidarity in our common war against terrorism," Erdogan was quoted as saying in a statement issued by Katsav's office.
The Israeli president echoed the demand for the two sides to show a united front.
"Turkey and Israel must cooperate for the sake of all the people in the Middle East region," he said.
Strictly secular Turkey is seen as Israel's closest friend in the Muslim world with a military alliance dating back a decade. Their sense of solidarity was strengthened by a bomb attack on a synagogue in Istanbul in November 2003.
Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party has strong Islamist roots, stressed his abhorrence of anti-Semitism.
"My party is against anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity. That's what my ancestors taught me, that's what my relgion teaches us," he said.
The Turkish prime minister then travelled to the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem which commemorates victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
05/01/2005 14:59 GMT