President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to press the international community for stronger action over Gaza, renewed recognition of Palestinian statehood and reform of the U.N. Security Council, while also calling for an end to the international isolation of Turkish Cypriots.
Erdoğan placed the Palestinian issue at the center of his speech, saying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was unable to attend the gathering for a second consecutive year and pledging that Türkiye would continue to raise the Palestinian people’s voice from the U.N. podium.
“This injustice against our Palestinian brothers and sisters deeply wounds our conscience,” Erdoğan said. “Just as last year, this year we will be the voice of a free and sovereign Palestinian state.”
Describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza in stark terms, Erdoğan said the enclave had become not only “the world’s largest graveyard for children” but also the place with the highest rate of child amputees due to Israel's genocidal attacks.
He said Israel killed more than 1,500 Palestinians even after a cease-fire reached through the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump and contributions from Türkiye and other countries.
“This is not a personal issue for Tayyip Erdoğan. It is a matter of humanity,” he said. “No one with humanity in their heart, with compassion and mercy, and with a sense of fairness and conscience can turn a blind eye to this tragedy.”
Erdoğan also described Gaza as “the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time” and slammed Israel for pursuing a “genocidal mentality with an insatiable appetite for killing.”
Turning to the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Erdoğan said the West Bank was experiencing its worst period of Israeli illegal settler violence and criticized Israeli authorities for restricting Muslim and Christian access to holy sites in Jerusalem.
He urged countries gathered at the U.N. to increase pressure on Israel and reiterated Türkiye’s support for a two-state solution.
“I call on you to exert greater pressure on Israel. Attempts to suffocate Palestine will fail,” Erdoğan said.
“God willing, we will see the day when an independent and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, based on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital, becomes a reality.”
Beyond the Middle East conflict, Erdoğan renewed his longstanding demand for changes to the structure of the U.N. Security Council, arguing that the current system gives disproportionate power to its five permanent members.
“A system in which the will of more than 190 countries is subject to the whims of five countries is neither fair nor capable of fully inspiring trust,” Erdoğan said.
He said the Security Council “must be reformed” in accordance with his longstanding principle that “the world is bigger than five,” referring to the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain, which hold permanent seats and veto power on the council.
Erdoğan also addressed growing competition over technology and the global economy, warning that “technological polarization and digital hegemony” were not in the interests of either the U.N.-centered international system or its member states.
He called for countries to jointly develop “a new paradigm” to confront deepening global income inequality.
On Cyprus, Erdoğan called for international recognition of the sovereign equality and international status of the Turkish Cypriot people.
“The inhumane isolation they have endured must finally come to an end,” Erdoğan said.
“I call on the international community to recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and establish political and economic relations with it.”
Erdoğan’s address brought together several longstanding pillars of Türkiye’s foreign policy, including support for Palestinian statehood, demands for greater representation in international institutions and Ankara’s push for international recognition of the TRNC.
