Turkey rejects Israel’s plan to annex West Bank: Presidential spokesperson

ANKARA

Turkish presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said on May 20 that Ankara rejects Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank and called on the international community to show the same approach.

“Turkey rejects and calls on the world to reject any annexation plan by Israel. Occupation is a crime. The annexation of more Palestinian lands is a crime,” Kalın said in a tweet.

“Turkey will support all steps and measures to stop the further theft of Palestinian lands,” he added.

Kalın’s remarks came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority will no longer be committed to any signed agreements with Israel or the United States, following Israel’s pledge to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state, but the Trump plan would leave them with scattered clusters of enclaves surrounded by Israel.

The Oslo accords and other agreements in the 1990s created the Palestinian Authority and govern its political, economic and security relations with Israel.

Most of the international community is opposed to annexation, which many fear would make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. A two-state solution based on the 1967 lines is still widely seen as the only way of resolving the decades-long conflict.

Israel is expected to carry out the annexation on July 1 as agreed between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, the head of the Blue and White party.