Turks rally in Ankara to protest visit by Israeli president
Turkish protesters have taken to the streets of the capital Ankara to vent their outrage at a controversial visit by Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
In Friday’s demonstration, the participants carried the flags of the Lebanese and Yemeni resistance movements, Hezbollah and Ansarullah, as well as pictures of Iran’s top anti-terror and anti-Zionist commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States in early 2020.
They chanted slogans such as, “Down with the US,” “Down with Israel,” “Hello to jihad (endeavor for the sake of God),” “Hello to Hezbollah,” and “We are all Qassem Soleimani”.
Herzog visited Turkey on Wednesday at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the most senior Israeli visit since 2008.
Erdogan described his Israeli counterpart's trip “a new turning point” in long-strained ties, expressing Turkey’s readiness to cooperate with the occupying regime in the energy sector.
Relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv hit a low in 2018 when they expelled ambassadors in a dispute over the killing by Israeli forces of dozens of Palestinians during the Great March of Return protests near the Gaza fence erected by Israel.
It halted years of reconciliation following a row over a 2010 Israeli raid on Gaza-bound aid ship Mavi Marmara that killed 10 Turkish pro-Palestinian activists.
On Wednesday, Turkish people held protests in the cities of Ankara, Istanbul, Gaziantep and Burdur against Herzog's visit.
They urged Ankara to reverse the "mistake" of boosting ties amid lingering animosity over the killing of the activists.
"Mavi Marmara is our pride," the demonstrators chanted, holding up banners reading, “We don't want a killer in our country."
"This is a great pain and a torment, it is like a knife to our people's chest," said Mehmet Tunc, one of those who was on the Mavi Marmara ship at the time of the deadly Israeli raid.
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