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Turkish PM’s Zionism Comments “Objectionable”: U.S. Secretary of State Kerry

Published on: March 6, 2013

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday criticized a comment by Turkey’s prime minister likening Zionism to crimes against humanity in a disagreement that cast a shadow over talks between the NATO allies.

Kerry, on his first trip to a Muslim nation since taking office, met Turkish leaders for talks meant to focus on the civil war in neighboring Syria and bilateral interests from energy security and Iran’s nuclear program to counter-terrorism.

But the comment by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at a U.N. meeting in Vienna this week, condemned by his Israeli counterpart, the White House and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has clouded his visit.

“We not only disagree with it, we found it objectionable,” Kerry told a news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, saying he raised the issue “very directly” with Davutoglu and would do so with Erdogan.

Erdogan told the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna on Wednesday: “Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become necessary to view Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.”

The Turkish prime minister’s caustic rhetoric on Israel has in the past won applause from conservative supporters at home but raised increasing concern among Western allies.

(Reuters)

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