Top Erdogan rival: October 7 ‘deeply saddening,’ Hamas a ‘terrorist organization’
Reelected Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, widely seen as challenger for Turkey’s presidency, also tells CNN ‘brutal oppression’ of Palestinians in Israel must end
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu called Hamas a “terrorist organization” in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, further distinguishing himself from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Hamas of course carried out an attack in Israel that we are deeply saddened by, and any organized structure that carries out terrorist attacks and kills people en masse is considered a terrorist organization by us,” Imamoglu told CNN.
“Unfortunately, the same thing is happening to innocent Palestinians in Israel today,” he added. “I demand that both these issues be evaluated in this context and that the brutal oppression of Palestinians stops immediately.”
“We interpret Hamas’s attack as a bad attack, and a very bad situation, as a terrorist attack. But we also represent an understanding that stands against the oppression of Palestinians and the killing of women and children,” Imamoglu told CNN.
Seen as a likely presidential candidate in the 2028 election, the Istanbul mayor’s comments came in stark contrast to Erdogan’s vitriolic criticism of Israel as it fights Hamas, which the president — himself a former Istanbul mayor — openly supports. In December, Erdogan said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “worse than Hitler” for the way he has conducted “terrorist state” Israel’s war in Gaza.
Erdogan also recently met with Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Turkey, where the Palestinian terrorist organization has reportedly considered relocating its leadership from Qatar.
Imamoglu’s reelection in the March vote marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP, by its Turkish initials) in their more than two decades in power. Imamoglu’s secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 36 of Turkey’s 81 provinces — including retaining the mayoralty of the capital, Ankara, by a stunning 25-point difference.
While the blow-out ostensibly signaled a change in the country’s divided political landscape, pundits were largely in agreement that Turkey’s economic woes led voters to punish AKP, rather than their opinion on Israel, despite Foreign Minister Israel Katz suggesting otherwise.
Özgür Özel, leader of CHP in the Turkish parliament, said ahead of the municipal election that he would not hesitate to field Imamoglu as the party’s presidential candidate in the country’s next elections in 2028, in which Erdogan has said he will not run.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Vowing to dismantle the terror group and release the hostages, Israel mounted an unprecedented assault on the Gaza Strip, effecting a humanitarian catastrophe in the embattled enclave.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
