Turkish president hails UN's Jerusalem decision

By Cansu Dikme

ANKARA (AA) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday welcomed the UN General Assembly's rejection of the U.S. decision on Jerusalem.

Referring to U.S. efforts to intimidate UN member states in the run-up to Thursday’s vote, he said: “It should be known that democracy is not a perception, a system or a regime where you can buy [good] will.”

Prior to voting on the resolution to declare the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void”, Washington had threatened to withdraw aid from countries that approved it.

“The world is bigger than five [and] much bigger than one,” Erdogan said in a speech at a meeting of provincial heads of the Justice and Development (AK) Party.

The president has previously railed against the dominance of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The nonbinding resolution, sponsored by Turkey and Yemen, was approved by 128 countries with nine voting against.

Apart from the U.S. and Israel, seven nations opposed the motion although 35 of the 193 UN member states abstained and 21 were absent from the vote.

On Monday, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by the 14 other council members calling on Trump to reverse his Jerusalem declaration.