Palestinian leader Abbas to visit Turkey on Aug 14-15, Ankara says

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Turkey on August 14 and 15, Ankara said Wednesday, several hours after Hamas’s political chief was killed in a strike in Iran.

The invitation comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with fears that Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination, which the Palestinian militant group pinned on Israel, could spark a regional escalation.

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Abbas will meet President Erdogan before addressing the Turkish Parliament the day after, the Turkish presidency said on X.

Turkish media reported that Erdogan invited Abbas to visit in response to the United States welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, a visit denounced by Ankara.

Erdogan has been a fierce critic of Israel’s conduct in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks, dubbing Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza.”

Abbas, who heads the Fatah Palestinian movement, a rival to Hamas, had already visited Turkey at Erdogan’s invitation in early March.

He will also visit Moscow on August 18, according to his office in Ramallah.

Haniyeh, whose killing Erdogan condemned as a "perfidious assassination" by Israel, last paid a visit to the Turkish president in April.

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The Palestinian movement’s political leader spent much time in Turkey before the October 7 attacks.

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