\n Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the \"genocide\" in Gaza is the \"shame of humanity\" as he called for renewed efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire.\n<\/p>\n
\n Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, renewed his attacks on Israel as he arrived in Tirana, the first stop of a Balkan tour that will also take him to Serbia.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The international community, we must do our best to urgently guarantee a permanent ceasefire and exert the necessary pressure on Israel,\" he told a joint press conference with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The genocide that has been going on in Gaza for the past year is the common shame of all humanity,\" he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, 42,065 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, mostly civilians. The UN has said the figures are reliable.\n<\/p>\n
\n Erdogan has branded Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the \"butcher of Gaza\" and compared him to Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The aggression led by the Netanyahu government now threatens the world order beyond the region,\" Erdogan said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Great Mosque of Tirana -\n<\/p>\n
\n Later Thursday, Erdogan will inaugurate the Great Mosque of Tirana, the largest Muslim place of worship in the Balkans, which has been paid for by Turkey.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some 600 Turkish companies employ more than 15,000 people in Albania, Erdogan said in February when he hosted Rama.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is one of the five biggest foreign investors in Albania, he said, with $3.5 billion (3.2 billion euros) committed.\n<\/p>\n
\n The two NATO member countries also have close military ties, with Turkey supplying Tirana with its Bayraktar TB2 drones.\n<\/p>\n
\n Erdogan, seeking to boost ties in a region once ruled by the Ottoman empire, will head late Thursday to Serbia, where Turkey made a diplomatic comeback in 2017 with a landmark Erdogan visit to Belgrade.\n<\/p>\n
\n The trip helped Erdogan and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic mend ties.\n<\/p>\n
\n The five century Ottoman presence in Serbia has traditionally weighed heavily on Belgrade-Ankara relations.\n<\/p>\n
\n Another source of tension has been Turkey's historic ties with Serbia's former breakaway province of Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Belgrade still refuses to recognise.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Erdogan's 2017 visit repaired the relationship with Serbia, Belgrade analyst Vuk Vuksanovic told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since then \"the Balkans is quite a success story for Turkey\", he added.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Military cooperation -\n<\/p>\n
\n Even so, it has not been all plain sailing. Belgrade was furious last year when Turkey sold drones to Kosovo, something Serbia said was \"unacceptable\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But the row could be patched up, the analyst insisted.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I would not be surprised if we see a military deal at the end of this visit,\" Vuksanovic said.\n<\/p>\n
\n He expected talks in Belgrade on Friday to focus on \"military cooperation, the position of Turkish companies, and attempts by Belgrade to persuade Ankara to tone down support for Kosovo.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n While the rapprochement is relatively new, economic ties between are already significant.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turkish investment in Serbia has rocketed from $1 million to $400 million over the past decade, the Turkey-Serbia business council told Turkey's Anadolu news agency.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turkish exports to Serbia hit $2.13 billion in 2022, up from $1.14 billion in 2020, according to official Serbian figures.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turkish tourists are also important for Serbia, second only to visitor numbers from Bosnia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the \"genocide\" in Gaza is the \"shame of humanity\" as he called for renewed efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire. Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, renewed his attacks on Israel as he arrived in Tirana, the first stop of a Balkan tour that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-136927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n