Thousands protest in Istanbul against U.S. Jerusalem move
Xinhua,December 11, 2017 Adjust font size:
ISTANBUL, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Turks on Sunday rallied in Istanbul against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The demonstrators, following the call of several activist groups and the conservative Felicity Party, poured into the Yenikapi Square, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags.
"We can only respond to this global siege with a global resistance and intifada," Temel Karamollaoglu, leader of the Felicity Party, told the crowd.
He called on Islamic countries to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine "in a very short time period," and cut their military, political, economic and diplomatic relations with Israel.
A group of protesters set fire to a puppet representing U.S. President Donald Trump while shouting slogans against Israel and the U.S.
They chanted "Thousands of greetings to Gaza from Istanbul," and "We salute Hamas and continue to resist."
They were referring to the militant Palestinian group Islamic Hamas movement, which has been fighting a war with Israel over the past decades.
Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital as "null and void."
Defying opposition and warnings from the Palestinians and Muslims across the world, Trump on Wednesday announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed holy city.
Erdogan has threatened to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel and called for an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul on Dec. 13.
The status of Jerusalem is the core issue in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, as the Palestinians are seeking to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
After taking over East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, Israel unilaterally declared whole Jerusalem as its eternal capital in 1980, a move that has never been recognized by the international community. Enditem