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Turkish dictator warning Iraq, Erdogan says Turkey will strike northern Iraq if Baghdad does not clear Kurdish militants

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Turkey will strike Kurdish militant camps in the mountains of northern Iraq in Qandil, Sinjar and Makhmur if the Iraqi central government does not clear the area of militants, Reuters reports, citing President Tayyip Erdogan.

Speaking in an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk, Erdogan said Turkey may strike Qandil “at any moment one evening.”

Turkey regularly carries out cross-border operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, where the group is based in the Qandil mountains. Ankara has also threatened to launch military operations in northern Iraq’s Sinjar region.

Jailed HDP presidential candidate Demirtas to file lawsuit against Turkey’s Erdogan

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YEREVAN, JUNE 2,  The lawyers of jailed pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) presidential candidate Selahettin Demirtas will file a lawsuit against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Diken reports.

During his remarks on June 1 President Erdogan commented on the appeal of the HDP submitted to the Constitutional Court according to which the party demands to release lawmaker Demirtas. “Release who? The person behind bars has the blood of 53 people on his hands”, Erdogan said as quoted by Ahval news agency.

Demirtas’s lawyers called Erdogan’s remarks as “black propaganda” and attempt to have an impact on the judiciary. The lawyers stated that Erdogan has violated the principle of presumption of innocence. They announced that they launch legal procedures against Erdogan and will file a lawsuit to receive a moral compensation.

 

Turkish Dictator Erdogan repeats unfriendly statements towards Armenia in London speech

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YEREVAN, MAY 14, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently in the UK, delivered a speech in London’s Chatham House, the Turkish Milliyet newspaper reports.

Erdogan also touched upon Armenia in his speech titled “Turkey’s regional and global vision”, once again displaying his unfriendly position towards Armenia.

In particular, Erdogan claimed that Turkey is supporting all initiatives for establishing long term peace and welfare in the Caucasus and the Middle East, adding: “the only country absent from this picture in Armenia. We are waiting for the day when we will see a reasonable approach from the Armenian leadership”.

This is the second similar statement by Turkey about Armenia in the recent days, which once again proves that Ankara continues speaking in the language of preconditions with Armenia.

Earlier on May 11, Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirimn responded to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement on the establishment of diplomatic ties with Ankara without preconditions. However, the Turkish PM once again repeated their preconditions.

According to Hurriyet newspaper, Yildirimn has said that Turkey doesn’t want to be hostile with its neighbors. Nevertheless, Yildirimn essentially didn’t deviate from the traditional Turkish political line towards Armenia.

In particular, the Turkish PM said: “Certainly if Armenia changes its hostile stance towards Turkey, refuses from its ambitions towards Turkey’s territorial integrity and borders, refuses from it all, desires to open a new chapter, then we will examine details and respond accordingly. We don’t want to be in hostility with anyone, particularly with neighbors. If such an approach would exist, we will discuss it within the framework of the interests of our state”.

In response to a question from reporters in Artsakh, the Armenian Prime Minister had earlier said that Armenia is today also ready for establishing relations with Turkey – without preconditions.

“As you know, Turkey has preconditions in this issue, and these preconditions are illogical, because relations with a third country cannot be a preconditions for the establishment of relations between two countries”, PM Pashinyan had said.

ENGLISH: Editor/Translator – Stepan Kocharyan

More than a million Turks say ‘Enough’ to Erdogan on social media

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million Turks say ‘Enough’ to Erdogan

ANKARA (Reuters) – More than a million Turks piled onto social media to call time on President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, making the word “Tamam” (“Enough”) a trending topic worldwide after he promised to step down if the people wanted it.

“If one day our nation says ‘enough’, then we will step aside,” he said in a speech in parliament.

The most popular – and divisive – politician in recent Turkish history, Erdogan has ruled for 15 years, overseeing a period of sharp economic growth and a widespread crackdown against his opponents. Last month he declared snap elections for June 24, bringing the polls forward by more than a year.

Soon after the speech, the #Tamam hashtag swept across Turkish-language Twitter, then became a global trending topic.

“We want democracy so we say #enough to Erdogan. Please leave your seat, you did insane things to our country and people. Enough,” said one user.

“You will not step aside quietly. You will give account for the things you did. Enough!” said another.

Erdogan’s rivals in the presidential polls also jumped in, with the “Tamam” tweets from three of his main opponents together garnering more than 10,000 retweets.

“Time is up. Enough!” tweeted Muharrem Ince, the candidate of the main opposition CHP.

Social media has become the primary platform for opposition against the government in Turkey, where traditional media is saturated with coverage of Erdogan and his ministers. Erdogan’s speeches, usually two or three a day, are all broadcast live on major channels, while opposition parties get little to no coverage.

“VERY STRANGE”

The “Tamam” tweets also provided a rare moment of opposition unity with all major parties, including the pro-Kurdish opposition uniting behind the hashtag. Pro-Kurdish politicians and Turkish nationalists rarely find common ground.

“Enough: It’s very strange that Erdogan has offered the opposition a uniting slogan,” tweeted journalist Rusen Cakir.

The government, however, dismissed the social media wave, which had accumulated close to 1.5 million posts by Tuesday night, saying the posts were sent by online bots associated with Kurdish PKK militants and Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Muslim cleric blamed by Ankara for a 2016 failed coup attempt.

“Most are being sent from countries where the FETO and PKK are active. Most are bot accounts. We can also understand Greece, but what about those inside (Turkey),” said Mahir Unal, spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.

FETO is an acronym for Gulen’s network of supporters.

“The keyboard heroes who don’t know what the ballot boxes mean, we will see each other on the night of June 24,” Unal wrote on Twitter.

Several people also took to the streets across Istanbul, some spelling out “TAMAM” with candles on pavements and roads. In the Kadikoy district, 10 demonstrators were detained, but later released after questioning, local media said.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have criticized Ankara for its deteriorating record on civil rights and have voiced concerns that the NATO member is sliding further into authoritarianism under Erdogan.

The government rejects such criticism and says its security measures are necessary due to the threats it faces.

After the June election, Turkey will switch to a powerful, executive presidential system that was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.

Paris: Debate with Bernard-Henry Levy: “Erdogan will end up in the dustbin of history”

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On the occasion of the release of his book The Empire and the 5 Kings , Bernard-Henri Lévy said he wanted to present it to three communities in priority: Jews, Kurds and Armenians. This was done on April 25 at the invitation of the Armenian News Magazine , and this on the premises of the UGAB Paris. For nearly 2 hours, the philosopher and writer explained his reading of contemporary barbarities, especially those related to the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, highlighting his rejection of Turkish fascism against a hundred people very attentive, who have asked questions at the end of this conference and had their book signed.

Before entering the AGBU room, BHL was promoted by Cyrille Eldin, a journalist for Canal +.

Why come to present this book to the Armenians, asked Ara Toranian, editor of the Armenian News Magazine , to start this discussion. ” The medal I received from your hands 3 years ago at the CCAF dinner, I received it with real emotion, without words in the air, ” recalled Bernard-Henri Levy. The meeting of 25 April was therefore an opportunity to express its gratitude to the Armenian people, but also to highlight one of the main threads of the book: the question of Turkey and the resurgence of Ottoman temptation today. If he admits to having been part of the beginning of those who believed in Erdogan’s arrival, he clearly thinks today ” that pan-Turkism is at the root of his regime “. If he had the idea of ​​the book The Empire and the 5 Kings during a trip to Kurdistan, the writer calls for solidarity between ” the people in excess “, the ” unaccounted for by the nations ” .

” The thesis of my book , the philosopher argued, is that today there are five master-singers in the world, the two most perverse are Erdogan and Putin. But they are in an alliance not unnatural, but counter-historical . Regretting that few people do not care: ” Europe lies down to this, that’s what I write in this book, that’s why I’m revolted. “

Before making a confession: ” If I were to die tomorrow, there is one thing I would be ashamed of for me: it was not being able to convince of the necessity of intervention in Syria “. Comparing the situations between Libya and Syria, ” from a place where one intervened and one where one did not intervene “.

Ara Toranian then asked him about Bashar Al Assad, perceived by the Christian minorities as a protector against the Islamists. He uses it as a strategic shield and human shield estimated Bernard-Henri Levy. What attitude do you have towards this? ” An international supervision for a given time? It will bring back bad memories, but if it’s the price to pay … “he said, adding that their fate was a top priority.

ournalist Le Monde , Gaidz Minassian then spoke, becoming at first the advocate of the devil: ” These five kings you speak – in China, Turkey, Iran, Russia, the Arab world – n do they have reasons to blame the West? “. To which Bernard-Henri Lévy replied: ” If I were Turkish, I will feel more humiliated by Erdogan than by the Westerners! “. But the author ensures not to be disenchanted, not to have lost courage – as proof of the publication of this book that ends with a message full of hope, ” but with some tears of melancholy, dedicated to Kurds ” – declaring under the applause: ” Erdogan, I think it will end up in the trash bin of history “.

According to him, it is up to Europe to take up the torch, since the United States is a little behind, the latter saying in words that Iran is his worst enemy, but leaving him such a gift in Syria, especially to Afrin. The problem: ” How to take up the torch if there is no solidarity between European countries? Yes, there is a war of civilization within Europe, and it is this battle that we must now lead “.

An exciting conference, which ended with a book signing.

Saturday, May 5, 2018,
Claire © armenews.com

Turkey: Erdoğan’s World of Terrorists Includes Everyone but Terrorists

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by Burak Bekdil,

  • Anyone who freely thinks for himself regarding Turkish President Erdoğan’s one-man rule, at home or abroad, can get the label “terrorist.”
  • On April 25, a Turkish court sentenced 14 staff members of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet to prison on charges of “terrorism,” and handed down sentences ranging from 2½ years to 7½ years.
  • When Erdoğan is not fighting hundreds of millions of “terrorists,” including almost the entire European continent, the U.S. and probably half his own nation, he is busy cultivating deeper ties with countries such as Russia, Sudan and Iran.

In another speech, again apparently succumbing to amnesia regarding decades of Arab and Muslim wars against Israel, he said: “You [Israel] are a terrorist state. It is known what you have done in Gaza and what you have done in Jerusalem. You have no one that likes you in the world.” — as if the entire world were a fan of Erdoğan.

On April 7, Erdoğan accused France of abetting terrorists by “hosting them” at the Élysée Palace, amid a diplomatic row between NATO allies Turkey and France over Paris’s support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main, Kurdish-dominated ground force that defeated Islamic State swathes of land in Syria. SDF also is an ally of the U.S. troops fighting in Syria. But Erdoğan said:

“You [France] will not be able to explain this. You will not be able to rid yourself of this terror burden… As long as the West nurtures these terrorists, you will sink”.

Then, there is the United States that “works with the terrorists:” In February Turkey warned American soldiers in Syria of the possibility of being treated as terrorists if they keep backing Kurdish militants. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ threatened that U.S. soldiers risk being caught up in clashes and that Turkish troops would not make a distinction if Americans appear in Kurdish uniforms.

In the worldview of the Turkish government, almost the entire continent of Europe is made up of terrorist states. In an April 25 speech, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım accused European nations, with the exception of Spain, of supporting terrorist organizations. A few weeks earlier, Yıldırım warned Bosnia-Herzegovina, a state friendly to Turkey, that it could be a target if it supported the “Gülenist terror organization,” a reference to the Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who was once Erdoğan’s staunch ally, but now is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

Anyone who freely thinks for himself regarding Erdoğan’s one-man rule, at home or abroad, can get the label “terrorist.” On March 24, Erdoğan criticized anti-war students at one of Turkey’s best universities, Boğaziçi, calling some of the people there terrorists after a fight that erupted on campus over Turkey’s military incursion into a Kurdish enclave in neighboring Syria. He called the protesting students “communist, traitor youth” protesting a “religious, nationalist, local youth.” The “communist, traitor youth” were immediately detained.

On April 25, a Turkish court sentenced 14 staff members of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet to prison on charges of “terrorism,” and handed down sentences ranging from 2½ years to 7½ years. Another defendant in the case, who was not employed by Cumhuriyet and had been charged for his activities on Twitter, got the stiffest sentence, 10 years. “It has been journalism itself that has been in the dock and today’s verdicts defy logic and offend justice,” said Milena Buyum, Turkey campaigner at rights group Amnesty International. “These politically motivated sentences are clearly intended to instill fear and silence any form of dissent.”

All that is insane. When Erdoğan is not fighting hundreds of millions of “terrorists,” including almost the entire European continent, the U.S. and probably half his own nation, he is busy cultivating deeper ties with countries such as Russia, Sudan and Iran.

During a December visit to Sudan, Erdoğan called his host, President Omar al-Bashir “his brother”. Sadly, Erdoğan’s brother, al-Bashir, is a man who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes against his people.

Erdoğan, meanwhile, is allying with Russia and Iran, ironically, to topple Syria’s Russia- and Iran-backed dictator, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to “bring peace to Syria” while invading the Kurdish enclaves in the country’s north.

In Erdoğan’s ideological divide, the world consists of “terrorist” countries such as the entire continent of Europe (minus Spain), plus the U.S. and half of his own country — as opposed to “noble” countries such as Russia, Sudan and Iran.

Afghani boys did not qualify for Erdogan terrorist Standard, therefore he is deporting as refugees

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This undated photo released in the Turkish media purportedly shows Afghan as refugees in the city of Erzurum in eastern Turkey.

Turkish authorities have kicked off deportations of hundreds of Afghan refugees who had come to the country in their thousands recently with the hope to cross into Europe.

The Dogan news agency said Sunday that a first group of Afghan refugees, some 227 people, had boarded a charter flight provided by an Afghan airline from Erzurum in northeastern Turkey back to Kabul, adding that 661 more refugees would be deported this week on board two more flights on the same route.

The deportations are part of efforts by Turkey to send back thousands of Afghan refugees who have illegally entered Turkey via Iran over the past weeks. Estimates suggest more than 18,000 refugees have arrived over the past weeks. Officials in Erzurum said some 3,000 refugees would be deported from the city alone.

The Turkish media said the deportations were based on an agreement with the Afghan government. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, who was in Kabul Sunday for talks with officials, thanked Afghan authorities for their cooperation over the issue of refugees.

However, Afghan officials rejected the notion the Afghans being deported, saying they were returning to Afghanistan at their own will.

Islamuddin Jurat, spokesman for Afghanistan’s ministry of refugees and repatriations, said the refugees had sought to cross from Turkey to European countries and when they failed, they decided to return to Afghanistan.

“A number of Afghan refugees are coming back to the country of their own will,” said Jurat, adding, “They are the ones who wanted to use Turkey as a transit route to other countries, but when they failed they decided to come back.”

Afghans about to be deported from Erzurum said they would come back soon.

“Of course (I will try to come back) … Back home, there is unemployment and a lack of security,” said a woman interviewed by Turkish television.

Turkey clinched an agreement with the European Union in 2015 to curb the flow of refugees who were hitting the European shores at the time. The agreement came after more than a million refugees, including Afghans, came to Europe in search of better work and living.

Accomplices of Erdogan Thug guards sentenced to prison for DC attack

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Two men were sentenced to one year and a day in prison Thursday for joining more than a dozen Turkish security officers who broke through a police line in May 2017 to attack protesters as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan watched.

The sentences may be the only ones ever handed down for what D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham called an “unprovoked and brutal attack on peaceful protesters,” after U.S. officials allowed other assailants to leave the country.

Sinan Narin and Eyup Yildirim admitted to kicking a woman and a senior citizen, respectively, as they lay on the ground — as seen in footage that outraged U.S. officials and contributed to worsening relations with Turkey.

Narin and Yildirim — both Turkish military veterans and naturalized U.S. citizens — wore orange jumpsuits. Handcuffs linked to chains around their waists, which clinked when they moved.

Judge Marisa Demeo called the attack in Sheridan Circle near the Turkish ambassador’s residence — as Erdogan arrived following a White House meeting with President Trump — “shocking” and “opposite of our democratic American values.”

But Demeo resisted calls for longer prison sentences.

“The fact that they were placed in jail, they were held in jail, and have been in jail for months serves as an adequate deterrent to others,” Demeo said. “It is a just punishment.”

The men did not speak, other than Yildirim saying “no thank you, your honor” to the opportunity. Both will get credit for time served.

Narin, who lives in Virginia, was working as a limo driver for Erdogan’s visit. Yildirim, his attorney said, drove from New Jersey out of national pride, not because he supports Erdogan or opposes Kurds, who were joined by a few Armenian and anti-authoritarian protesters.

Victims unsuccessfully called for harsher penalties during impact statements, arguing against plea deals that called for one year and a day in prison. Because the men had no criminal history, guidelines called for between six and 24 months in prison.

In pleading guilty, Narin admitted kicking Lusik “Lucy” Usoyan, a Yezidi Kurd from Armenia who became a U.S. citizen. Usoyan lost consciousness after being kicked by Narin and five other men — three identified in an indictment.

Usoyan told the court the incident affects her daily life, making her cautious around other people, easily disturbed by loud noises, and prone to panic attacks.

“I could have been killed, and I ask that you punish these criminals to the maximum extent of the law,” Usoyan said. She declined to comment after the hearing.

Yildirim, meanwhile, admitted kicking Sayid Reza Yasa in the back as he lay on the ground. Yasa, a U.S. citizen born in Turkey, suffered broken teeth and a concussion, and said he continues to have trouble with memory. Because he was over 60, his assailants — five out of six identified in an indictment — were charged with assaulting a senior citizen.

Yasa, a Kurd who said he moved to the U.S. to avoid political persecution, said he was disappointed by the sentences.

“It’s telling the fascist Turkish-Americans here it’s okay to attack the peaceful protesters here, you can kick them. Just 12 months? I’m disappointed,” he said outside the courtroom.

As victims of the attack gathered in a court lobby, a supporter of Narin and Yildirim walked toward an escalator flashing a hand sign representing a wolf, a gesture used by Turkish nationalists that victims interpreted as a threat.

Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, recorded video of the man making the Turkish nationalist gesture.

Attack victim Mehmet Tankan, who was punched and kicked by seven men — five of them identified in an indictment — told the Washington Examiner that “I think I’m not going to protest against them again” because he doesn’t believe there was much deterrence in the prison sentences.

Golala Arya, a Kurdish-American from Iran, said she wasn’t at the protest, but that her husband brought their then seven-year-old daughter, who she said was “traumatized” by the assault.

“What if they killed my dad?” her daughter asked. 

Arya said she wanted to give a victim impact statement on behalf of her family, but was not allowed to do so when Demeo cut off victims not directly victimized by Narin or Yildirim. She had not submitted remarks for the record.

“Justice would have been served if the Turkish government was on trial, not two foot soldiers,” Arya said. She would have preferred “at least 10 years, at least” for Narin and Yildirim.

Abbas Azizi, one of three victims allowed to speak in court, and the only one not directly attacked by Narin and Yildirim, said outside the courtroom he believes the U.S. government brokered a backroom deal allowing for most charges to be dropped against Erdogan’s guards.

“Justice did not prevail,” he said.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/accomplices-of-erdogan-guards-sentenced-to-prison-for-dc-attack

Here’s how we can make Turkey’s president pay a price for his crackdown on journalists Video

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By Michael Rubin,

It is time for the United States and its allies to show Erdogan that his crackdown, at home and abroad, comes at a cost. The West can start by using some of the same mechanisms it has applied to bad behavior from Russia — in particular, the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on individuals who could be shown to have committed serious violations of human rights.

We would be well-advised to start by looking at the president’s treatment of the press. Eviscerating free speech and press freedom have been central to Erdogan’s strategy. If the opposition has no platform, then Erdogan need not win arguments — he can simply impose them and eschew accountability for his policies. The warning signs were there from the start: In 2005, after Musa Kart, an editorial cartoonist for Cumhuriyet, lampoonedErdogan as a cat entangled in yarn, Erdogan successfully sued Kart for $3,500. When Kart again lampooned the president, he ended up in prison.

He was not alone. In 2012, Reporters Without Borders called Turkey “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” Today, more than 70 Turkish journalists languish in prison. (Turkey has also targeted foreigners. In my case, it demanded Twitter close my account, issued a reward for my arrest and demanded an Interpol “red notice” against me, all because Erdogan dislikes my writing.)

Erdogan turned his fire not only upon reporters but also upon their editors and employers. After the newspaper Cumhuriyet published photographs showing Turkish trucks supplying weaponry to Islamist Syrian rebels, a Turkish court convicted its editor Can Dundar of “leaking secret information of the state.” Early in his tenure, Erdogan staffed Turkey’s tax and banking boards with political loyalists and used them to wield punishing tax bills against companies whose papers and television stations criticized him. In 2009, for example, he fined the Dogan Group, Turkey’s largest media company, $500 million after its various newspapers and television stations criticized his policies. The company appealed the fine and maintained its independent line — until it was hit, several months later, by a separate $2.5 billion penalty.

Dogan is now in the process of being sold off to a pro-government conglomerate. It will be just Erdogan’s latest media scalp. In 2007, Erdogan’s government seized Sabah-ATV, which included several newspapers, a TV station and a radio station. Multiple buyers expressed interest in bidding for the company, but with mafia-like persuasion, Erdogan persuaded all to drop out, allowing his son-in-law to grab the media group at a bargain basement price. In 2016, the high-circulation Zaman newspaper suffered a similar fate and was simply shut down.

The press-freedom chill in Turkey is no secret. Over the course of Erdogan’s rule, Turkey’s rank in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index fell from 115 to 155, putting it below even Russia, Pakistan and Burma. Freedom House now ranks Turkey “not free.”

What happens in Turkey does not stay in Turkey, however. Erdogan’s declaration that he seeks “to raise a religious generation” means in practice a promotion of radicalism rather than religiosity. In terms of incitement and export of radical preachers, Turkey is quickly becoming today what Saudi Arabia was in the 1980s. Erdogan’s regime has supportedHamas, Sudan’s genocidal regime and even al-Qaeda associates. Emails said to be from Erdogan’s own son-in-law have shown a willingness to profit off Islamic State oil. The press crackdown, however, has left many Turks blind to their leadership’s behavior.

If the State Department and Congress wanted, however, they could stand up for the free press and impose a cost on its repression. Just as the 2012 Magnitsky Act sanctioned human rights violators in Russia, the U.S. government could impose Magnitsky penalties not only on those who target free speech but also on those who profit from its suppression.

Turks reacted with shock when, in October 2017, the United States temporarily suspendedissuing some visas to punish Turkey’s arrest of a consular employee. To ban visas for those who profit from Erdogan’s media seizures could be equally effective. Anyone who takes over a seized paper or replaces a journalist fired for independence should pay a price. So, too, should Erdogan press appointees who have — as is common knowledge among Turkish journalists — compromised professional ethics for the sake of multimillion-dollar payouts or posh homes along the Bosporus. Such actions won’t restore press freedom, but they will signal that profiting off its repression comes with a cost. It’s time to stand up for Turkey’s independent journalists, an endangered species, before they truly become extinct.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/04/05/heres-how-we-can-make-turkeys-president-pay-a-price-for-his-crackdown-on-journalists/?utm_term=.5371adb37f1e

Erdogan accuses Israel occupier and Terrorist state “Hey Netanyahu! You are an occupier.”

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Erdogan fulfills his dream of dictatorship

Erdogan fulfills his dream of dictatorship

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday of being “a terrorist” after the Israeli prime minister rejected Ankara’s “moral lessons” over deadly clashes on the border with the Gaza Strip.“Hey Netanyahu! You are an occupier. And it is as an occupier that you are on those lands. At the same time, you are a terrorist,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Adana, southern Turkey, the Times of Israel reports.“What you do to the oppressed Palestinians will be part of history and we will never forget it,” he said, adding: “The Israeli people are uncomfortable with what you’re doing. We are not guilty of any act of occupation.”

In another speech Reuters quoted Erdogan as saying: “You are a terrorist state. It is known what you have done in Gaza and what you have done in Jerusalem. You have no one that likes you in the world.” Also Sunday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met in Cairo with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi to discuss the border clashes, the Hebrew-language Ynet website reported.In a joint press conference after their meeting, Safadi said the international community needs to protect the Palestinians as they demand what he termed their “legitimate rights.”The two said they rejected violence towards the Palestinians and vowed that the Palestinians would be protected so that they could obtain their legitimate rights.

Netanyahu earlier Sunday lashed out at Turkey in response to its president’s claim that Israel had mounted an “inhumane attack” on Palestinians during Friday’s mass protests on the border with Israel.

“The most moral army in the world will not accept moral preaching from someone who for years has been bombing a civilian population indiscriminately,” Netanyahu said, in apparent reference to Ankara’s ongoing battle against the Kurds.

“That’s apparently how Ankara marks [April Fool’s Day],” Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew, of the Turkish condemnation.

On Saturday, Erdogan said during a speech in Istanbul, “I strongly condemn the Israeli government over its inhumane attack.”

The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that at least 10 of those killed — the Gazans reported a death toll of 15 — were members of Palestinian terror groups including Hamas.

IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis said Friday the military faced “a violent, terrorist demonstration at six points” along the fence.

He said the IDF used “pinpoint fire” wherever there were attempts to breach or damage the security fence. “All the fatalities were aged 18-30, several of the fatalities were known to us, and at least two of them were members of Hamas commando forces,” he said in a late afternoon statement.As of Saturday evening, Hamas, a terrorist group that openly seeks to destroy Israel, itself acknowledged that five of the dead in the so-called “March of Return” were its own gunmen.

On Friday, some 30,000 Palestinians took part in demonstrations along the Gaza border, during which rioters threw rocks and firebombs at Israeli troops on the other side of the fence, burned tires and scrap wood, sought to breach and damage the security fence, and in one case opened fire at Israeli soldiers.The IDF said that its sharpshooters targeted only those taking explicit violent action against Israeli troops or trying to break through or damage the security fence.

At previous peace talks, the Palestinians have always demanded, along with sovereignty in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Old City, a “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees who left or were forced out of Israel when it was established. The Palestinians demand this right not only for those of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still alive — a figure estimated in the low tens of thousands — but also for their descendants, who number in the millions.