Erdoğan calls on Jewish community to engage in ceasefire diplomacy

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on the Jewish community in Turkey to get involved in ceasefire diplomacy, Hurriyet Daily News reported..

“They are people who can become a part of this [cease-fire] mechanism,” Erdoğan said, adding that the Jewish community in Turkey totaled between 20,000 and 30,000 people.

“They have connections there [in Israel] and they should make use of these connections, because they know very well about the position we are in right now,” Erdoğan said Nov 21.

He revealed that Turkish and Israeli intelligence authorities had recently contacted each other over the Gaza crisis, but said that Ankara had not been in direct political dialogue with Israel. “We have not conducted any meetings with Israel in the political sense, and we will not do so throughout this process unless an exceptional situation appears,” he said.

Although the intelligence services of both Israel and Turkey were working on the issue, it is not possible for such organizations to end such a process, Erdoğan noted.