Erdogan compares Israel to Nazi Germany, gives anti-Israel UNGA presentation
Netanyahu urges the Turkish president to 'stop lying' after Erdogan holds up map of Israel during address to world leaders, claiming it shows 'shrinking Palestine'; shortly before the speech he compared murder of Jews in WWII to events in Gaza
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday compared Israel's actions in Gaza to the Holocaust and provided a show and tell presentation, similar to the ones favored by Israeli leader, condemning what he described is an Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly attended by world leaders, the Turkish president said the only solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an "immediate establishment" a Palestinian state.
"The immediate establishment of an independent Palestinian state with homogeneous territories, on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, is the only solution," he said. "Any other peace plan will never be implemented."
Shortly before his speech at UNGA, the president met with Turkish natives living in New York, where the General Assembly is located, where he compared the murder of Jews during the Holocaust to the "genocide" committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
"When we look at the genocide Nazis committed against Jews, we should look at the massacre happening in the Gaza Strip from the same point of view," Erdogan is quoted as saying by the Turkish Anadolu news agency.
In his UN speech, Erdogan went on to hold up a map showing Israel through the years from 1947 to the present day, revealing what he claims are "shrinking" Palestinian territories. "Where are the borders of the State of Israel?" Erdogan said, adding the Jewish state is one of the most racist countries in the world.
Visual presentations have in the past been a tool favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who during his UNGA address last year used a map revealing what he claimed was "another atomic facility in Iran."
"He who does not stop lying about Israel, who slaughters the Kurds in his country, and who denies the awful massacre of the Armenian people – should not preach to Israel," said Netanyahu in a statement following the Turkish president's speech. "Erdogan, stop lying."
The 65-year-old then took another thinly veiled shot at Israel, saying nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely, and warned that the "inequality" between states who have nuclear power and who do not undermines global balances.
Erdogan has hinted in the past that he wanted he same protection for Turkey as Israel, which foreign analysts say possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal.
Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity around the nuclear issue, refusing to confirm or deny its capabilities.
"The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone," Erdogan told the United Nations General Assembly annual gathering of world leaders.
Turkey signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980, and has also signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations for any purpose.
