Erdogan: UN should impose sanctions on Israel like Iran

Turkish PM tells 'Time' he is not optimistic about Quartet efforts, says UN sanctions would have resolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Edrogan 311 (photo credit: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany)
Edrogan 311
(photo credit: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the UN Security Council should have followed through with resolutions on Israel and imposed sanctions against the Jewish state. 
Speaking to Time magazine, Erdogan criticized the UN for leveling sanctions on Iran and Sudan, while avoiding implementing trade measures against Israel - a move, Erdogan said, could have helped solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Erdogan was not optimistic about the Quartet efforts, saying that if it was truly interested in improving Israeli-Palestinian relations, it would pushed for imposing sanctions on Israel.
"Until today, the UN Security Council has issued more than 89 resolutions on prospective sanctions related to Israel, but they've never been executed. When it's Iran in question, you impose sanctions. What happens with Israel then?" he asked. The Turkish prime minister made "a call out to humanity", saying that the Palestinians cannot be left to struggle any longer and countries that do not recognize their demands for statehood "will never be able to settle their accounts with history."
Addressing Turkey's deteriorating relations with Israel, Erdogan said that ties would have remained strong had Israel not "victimized the positive relations between the two countries with [its 2010 raid] on the Mavi Marmara."
The prime minister continued to insist on his earlier conditions for normalization of ties - an Israeli apology and compensation to the families of the Turks who died on the flotilla and the lifting of the embargo on Gaza.