Qurtulmuş: It is time for Palestine to be in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The President of the Turkish Parliament, Numan Kurtulmuş, expressed his belief that the time has come for Palestine to be part of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. This was stated in a speech he delivered during his participation in the 23rd autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which was held in Istanbul yesterday, Monday.

Kurtulmuş warned of the consequences of forgetting the genocide witnessed in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the Israeli army, indicating that if it is forgotten, it will be repeated elsewhere. He continued, saying: "We are now facing the challenge of achieving a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Although an agreement has been theoretically reached, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his government continue to commit genocide with the support of influential actors in the international system (whom he did not name)."

He called on the international system to abandon its complacency, stating that it is impossible to assume that things will improve from now on merely because a ceasefire has been reached. He added: "The international system must take the necessary actions against Netanyahu and his gang, and exert all pressure to ensure compliance with the agreement reached. The most important of these actions is to achieve a two-state solution. To achieve this, we must raise our voices in all international forums."

He affirmed that the conflict between Israel and Palestine will not end until a Palestinian state is established, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the borders of June 4, 1967. He said: "Therefore, we must continue to pursue this oppression and genocide that the Palestinian people are suffering until the end, and we must strive to ensure that this genocide does not go unpunished."

He pointed out that Netanyahu's government, driven by the international system's impotence and silence and the support of some parties, continues genocide not only in the Gaza area but also in the West Bank. He added that the way to prevent this is to listen to the voices of hundreds of millions who took to the streets and shouted: "Stop the genocide."

The Gaza Strip has been subjected to a genocide war initiated by Israel on October 8, 2023, which stopped after two years under a ceasefire agreement, after leaving more than 69,000 Palestinian dead and over 170,000 injured, most of whom are children and women, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about 70 billion dollars.

Since October 2023, coinciding with the genocide war on Gaza, Israel has escalated its measures in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,074 Palestinians, injuries to about 10,700, in addition to the arrest of more than 20,500 others.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe emerged during the Cold War as a forum for negotiation and conference diplomacy aimed at reducing tensions and points of contention through establishing regular dialogue between the Eastern and Western blocs.

In the 1970s, after the Eastern bloc accepted the Western proposal to begin negotiations on "mutual and balanced reductions of forces," 33 European countries and the United States signed the final Helsinki document as a result of the Conference on Security and Co-operation.

The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe transformed into an international organization at the Budapest Summit in 1994 and was named the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Turkey is one of the founding members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and sees the organization as a comprehensive platform, emphasizing that the need for the organization has become more important in a period of increasing security challenges in the Euro-Atlantic and Euro-Asian regions.