Turks, Gaza praise PM Erdoğan

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

After his dramatic exit from the Davos forum, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received a hero’s welcome on his return to Turkey.

Only hours after he stormed off the stage in front of Israel’s President Peres and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and vowing not to return to the forum, Erdoğan was greeted at Atatürk Airport by a jubilant crowd of more than 5,000 supporters, many waving Turkish and Palestinian flags.

His plane landed at Istanbul's airport at about 2 a.m. after leaving the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The dispute about Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip soon reared its head in a panel discussion Thursday, and it ended when Erdoğan walked off the stage after telling Israeli President Shimon Peres: "You kill people."

"I did what I had to do," he told reporters gathered at the airport. "I cannot remain apathetic when it comes to these things. It’s just not in my nature. I am duty-bound to defend the honor of my country." He said he was not "at heart a diplomat but a politician," reported Agence France Press yesterday.

On Friday morning, many people gathered in front of Erdoğan’s house in Istanbul’s Üsküdar district shouting, "Turkey is proud of you." As Erdoğan went to the Büyük Piyalepaşa Mosque in Istanbul’s Kasımpaşa, for Friday’s midday prayer, a crowd shouted slogans praising Erdoğan. Many neighboring houses were draped in Turkish flags. Erdoğan also won praise from Gazans for the show of support and his public quarrel with Israeli President Shimon Peres.

In the Gaza refugee camp of Jebaliya, Turkish flags decorated the ruins of a local mosque that was destroyed during the recent war against Gaza's Hamas rulers and locals gathered to hear people speak, the Associated Press reported.

A preacher told worshippers at an outdoor service at the ruined mosque Friday that Erdoğan "raised the head of the Islamic nation." Jalal Bin Yousef al-Sharifi called on other Muslim leaders to do the same.

Palestinians carried the Turkish flag along side Palestinian ones. Speakers cried: "The people of Gaza love Turkey" and "The people of Gaza are with you and love you." A photo of Erdoğan is erected on the stage after the speeches were over. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas also hailed Erdoğan on Friday for his altercation with Peres.

"Hamas pays tribute to the courageous stand of Turkey's prime minister ... who in Davos directly defended the victims of the criminal Zionist war against our children and women in Gaza," spokesman Fawzi Barhum said. "We consider his departure from the room an expression of support for the victims of the Holocaust carried out by the Zionists," he said in a statement.

Erdoğan’s early exit at the forum Thursday came after heated remarks with Peres over Israel’s war in Gaza. The war claimed more than 1,300 Palestinian lives, a third of them children. Three Israeli civilians were killed in the fighting as well as 14 soldiers.