Turkish PM Erdoğan defends FM’s tears in Gaza

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited wounded people in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Nov 20 and met the relatives of killed Palestinians. AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan harshly condemned Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu yesterday for his remarks criticizing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s sentimental outburst during a visit to Gaza.

Davutoğlu visited Gaza on Nov. 20 with a delegation of Arab foreign ministers led by Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby. He visited wounded people in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza and met the relatives of Palestinians who had lost their lives during the deadly Israeli raid. At the hospital, a tearful Davutoğlu was photographed trying to console the father of a 15-year-old girl who was killed in an Israeli strike. Wires distributed these images across the world.

“Be sure about it, that photograph is a pose. If you have to cry, there are thousands of mothers of martyrs in this country, you should at least hug one of them and cry,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on Nov. 27.

‘Inconsiderate’

During a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdoğan called Kılıçdaroğlu’s remarks “inconsiderate.”

“When it comes to injustice, insensitivity and apathy, the CHP leader is competing with Israel,” Erdoğan said. “I’m sure that the Israeli leaders – like the bloody administrators of Syria – are highly content to have such a supporter in Turkey,” he added, claiming that Kılıçdaroğlu was discriminating between Arab and Turkish martyrs and that this was “racism.”