Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivering a speech during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya. AFP
"No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization," he said in a speech in Istanbul. "Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them."
Erdogan has been one of the most virulent critics of Israel since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, that claimed the live of 30,960 people in the besieged Palestinian strip, mostly women and children.
Erdogan has called Israel a "terrorist state" and accused it of conducting a "genocide" in Gaza, and said Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no different from Adolf Hitler and likened Israel's attacks on Gaza to the treatment by the Nazis.
He again stressed that "Netanyahu and his administration earns their place alongside Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin as Nazis of our time."
Erdogan said that Turkey has dispatched some 40000 tons of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip through 19 aircraft and seven civilian aid vessels so far.
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