Turkish premier invites 3 more PMs to OIC's Gaza summit

By Aynur Ekiz

ANKARA (AA) – Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim invited his three counterparts from Libya, Nigeria and Iraq to Friday’s emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), according to prime ministerial sources on Thursday.

Yildirim phoned Libya's Fayez al-Sarraj, Nigerien Prime Minister Brigi Rafini and his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi to invite them to the emergency OIC summit to be held in Istanbul on Friday, the sources from the Turkish Prime Ministry confirmed.

On Tuesday, Yildirim invited Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Morocco’s Saadeddine Othmani, Pakistan’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Abdullah bin Nasır es-Sani from Qatar and Algeria's Ahmed Ouyahia -- all premiers -- to join the summit meeting.

The Istanbul summit meeting -- called for by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- is expected to send a strong message against the Israeli violence that martyred, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 62 Palestinians, the youngest of whom was eight months old, during mass rallies Monday along Gaza's eastern border.

A large number of heads of state and government including Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz are expected to participate in the summit.

Since the mass Gaza rallies began on March 30, more than 100 Palestinian protesters have been martyred by cross-border Israeli army gunfire.

Monday’s protests in Gaza had coincided with Israel’s 70th anniversary -- an event Palestinians refer to as Nakba or the Catastrophe -- and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Last week, the Israeli government claimed the ongoing border protests constituted a “state of war” in which international humanitarian law does not apply.