Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he would visit Türkiye in early 2024 while heaping praise on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his efforts to solve the Palestine-Israel conflict. As he answered a question by journalists during his annual news conference in Moscow, Putin said Erdoğan was playing a significant, leading role in terms of resolving the situation in Gaza.
"He is one of the leaders of the international community who pays attention to this tragedy. He is doing everything to change the situation for the better, for a lasting peace," he said. "He is very active on this issue. God bless him," Putin added.
The Russian leader, who cultivated close ties with Ankara during his tenure, said he planned to travel to Türkiye to meet Erdoğan before the end of the year, but their schedules did not correspond, so a visit was planned for early next year.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday said Moscow cannot recognize Israel's methods against the Palestinian group Hamas as "acceptable."
"From the very beginning, we strongly condemned ... the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 against Israeli civilians ... and urgently called for the need to suppress such terrorist activities. But, at the same time, we cannot recognize as acceptable those methods which began to be used (by Israel) against Hamas, from which civilians suffered the most," Lavrov said in a speech at the Russian Federation Council.
Saying that Israel apparently believes it has the right to destroy Hamas by any means, Lavrov said the result of such a line of thought is clear due to the huge number of casualties in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, when Israel's offensive began, following the Hamas attack. "Neighborhoods are being razed to the ground, more than 18,000 civilians have already died, this figure is increasing every day, two-thirds of them are women and children. The situation is terrible," Lavrov said. His remarks come days after a conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin, in which the former criticized the cooperation between Russia and Iran and expressed his dissatisfaction with the positions taken "against Israel by Russian representatives at the U.N. and in other forums."
Lavrov said there currently is a dispute at the U.N. "about who will prevail in rhetoric, in the ideological struggle." He said Russia will never agree to a deal undermining Israel's security, but Moscow is also convinced that security can only be ensured in accordance with U.N. decisions, which call for an independent Palestinian state. He accused the West of not intending to create such a state, adding that attempts to create Jewish settlements in the West Bank did not stop. "The practice of demolishing Palestinian houses and expelling Palestinian families from these houses continues because Israel wants to develop these territories for new settlements," he said.
