Warns OIC against ‘new Sykes-Picot order’ in ME

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Israel’s attacks on Iran right before a new round of nuclear talks with the United States aimed to sabotage the negotiations, and it showed Israel did not want to resolve issues through diplomacy.

Speaking at a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, Erdogan urged countries with influence over Israel not to listen to its “poison” and to seek a solution to the fighting via dialogue without allowing a wider conflict.

He also called on Muslim countries to increase their efforts to impose punitive measures against Israel on the basis of international law and United Nations’ resolutions.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against a “new Sykes-Picot order” in the Middle East and called for stronger solidarity among Islamic nations to counter Israeli actions and regional destabilisation.

“We will not allow the establishment of a new Sykes-Picot order in our region with borders to be drawn in blood,” Erdogan said at the 51st Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul.

He described the conditions in Gaza as worse than those of Nazi concentration camps, noting that “Two million of our sisters and brothers in Gaza have been struggling to survive under these conditions for 21 months.”

Erdogan expressed confidence in the resilience of the Iranian people amid the current conflict. “We have no doubt that the Iranian people, with their solidarity in the face of difficulties and strong state experience, will hopefully overcome these days,” he said.

He also urged Islamic countries to stand firm against Israel’s actions beyond Gaza. “We must show greater solidarity to stop Israel’s acts of banditry not only in Palestine but also in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran,” Erdogan added.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday accused Israel of leading the Middle East towards “total disaster” by attacking Iran on June 13.

“Israel is now leading the region to the brink of total disaster by attacking Iran, our neighbour,” he told a summit of the OIC in Istanbul.

“There is no Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemeni or Iranian problem but there is clearly an Israeli problem,” Fidan said.

He called for an end to the “unlimited aggression” against Iran, adding: “We must prevent the situation from deteriorating into a spiral of violence that would further jeopardise regional and global security.”

Israel targeted “two centrifuge production sites” at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility overnight in a second wave of strikes on the location since the start of the war, a military official said on Saturday.

“Isfahan we targeted in the first 24 hours of our operation, but we carried out a second wave of strikes there overnight, deepening our achievements and advancing the damage to the facility,” the military official told reporters during a briefing on condition of anonymity.