Turkey hits back at Netanyahu, condemns Israeli ‘massacres’

PARIS — Ankara on Sunday evening shoots back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier in the day accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of bombing Kurdish civilians and helping terrorists kill innocent people.

The Israeli prime minister had been responding to earlier comments by Erdogan, who called Israel a “terrorist state” that “kills children.”

“It is not possible to take seriously the allegations and accusations made by a mentality, which massacred thousands of Palestinians, turned the lands of the Palestinians into an open-air prison, in order to suppress its guilt,” Erdogan’s spokesperson says.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms Israeli PM Netanyahu’s remarks targeting the Republic of Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” he says in a written message.

Israel, which disregards international law, “occupies Palestinian people’s hundreds-of-years-old homeland and systematically violates United Nations resolutions, must first account for its own actions,” the statement says.

Earlier on Sunday, during a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu had said: “Erdogan should not preach to us; he bombs Kurdish villages in Turkey, imprisons journalists, helps Iran evade international sanctions and helps terrorists attack innocents in Gaza and other places.”

— Raphael Ahren