Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Albanian counterpart Bajram Begaj inspect a guard of honour at the start of Erdogan’s visit to Tirana
Adnan Beci
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RECASTS with Erdogan comments on Gaza ADDS Erdogan quotes
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the “genocide” in Gaza is the “shame of humanity” as he called for renewed efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire.
Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, renewed his attacks on Israel as he arrived in Tirana, the first stop of a Balkan tour that will also take him to Serbia.
“The international community, we must do our best to urgently guarantee a permanent ceasefire and exert the necessary pressure on Israel,” he told a joint press conference with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
“The genocide that has been going on in Gaza for the past year is the common shame of all humanity,” he added.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, 42,065 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, mostly civilians. The UN has said the figures are reliable.
Erdogan has branded Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the “butcher of Gaza” and compared him to Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.
“The aggression led by the Netanyahu government now threatens the world order beyond the region,” Erdogan said.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama
Adnan Beci
Later Thursday, Erdogan will inaugurate the Great Mosque of Tirana, the largest Muslim place of worship in the Balkans, which has been paid for by Turkey.
Some 600 Turkish companies employ more than 15,000 people in Albania, Erdogan said in February when he hosted Rama.
It is one of the five biggest foreign investors in Albania, he said, with $3.5 billion (3.2 billion euros) committed.
The two NATO member countries also have close military ties, with Turkey supplying Tirana with its Bayraktar TB2 drones.
Erdogan, seeking to boost ties in a region once ruled by the Ottoman empire, will head late Thursday to Serbia, where Turkey made a diplomatic comeback in 2017 with a landmark Erdogan visit to Belgrade.
The trip helped Erdogan and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic mend ties.
The five century Ottoman presence in Serbia has traditionally weighed heavily on Belgrade-Ankara relations.
Another source of tension has been Turkey’s historic ties with Serbia’s former breakaway province of Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Belgrade still refuses to recognise.
But Erdogan’s 2017 visit repaired the relationship with Serbia, Belgrade analyst Vuk Vuksanovic told AFP.
Since then “the Balkans is quite a success story for Turkey”, he added.
Even so, it has not been all plain sailing. Belgrade was furious last year when Turkey sold drones to Kosovo, something Serbia said was “unacceptable”.
But the row could be patched up, the analyst insisted.
“I would not be surprised if we see a military deal at the end of this visit,” Vuksanovic said.
Some observers are expecting some kind of military agreement between Turkey and Serbia
Andrej ISAKOVIC
He expected talks in Belgrade on Friday to focus on “military cooperation, the position of Turkish companies, and attempts by Belgrade to persuade Ankara to tone down support for Kosovo.”
While the rapprochement is relatively new, economic ties between are already significant.
Turkish investment in Serbia has rocketed from $1 million to $400 million over the past decade, the Turkey-Serbia business council told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency.
Turkish exports to Serbia hit $2.13 billion in 2022, up from $1.14 billion in 2020, according to official Serbian figures.
Turkish tourists are also important for Serbia, second only to visitor numbers from Bosnia.
