“A ceasefire and peace have become more essential.”
Ankara:
Turkey and Iran called Wednesday for a regional conference aimed at preventing the spread of the war between Israel and Hamas. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with his counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian a day after Iran’s top diplomat met with Hamas leaders in Qatar.
Iran has warned that armed groups it supports in the region could attack Israel as part of its war against Hamas.
Fidan said Turkey was pushing for an immediate ceasefire because « it is not difficult to predict that this spiral of violence will worsen » without a permanent solution to the war.
“We do not want the human tragedy in Gaza to turn into a war that affects countries in the region,” Fidan said.
Iran’s foreign minister « shared with us that there are strong indications that other armed elements in the region could intervene in the conflict if conditions do not change, » Fidan said.
“A ceasefire and peace have become more essential.”
Amir-Abdollahian said a peace conference involving “Muslim and Arab” countries should take place “as soon as possible.”
He also called on the Muslim world to boycott Israeli products because of the war.
Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip since Hamas gunmen stormed the border on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
The bombing campaign has killed more than 8,796 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
