Turkey slams Israel’s annexation scheme warns of escalation

In a statement on Saturday, Turkey's Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that the Tel Aviv regime must halt its illegal campaigns, calling on the international community to stop Israel's "modern vandalism."

"Israel’s policy of occupation and annexation is an invitation to more conflict and escalation. Israel must cease its illegal activities and the world must stop this modern vandalism," he said, stressing, "Turkey and everyone with a sense of justice will stand by the Palestinian people."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a number of criminal indictments, has repeatedly stressed that he would start plans for annexing more areas in the occupied West Bank on July 1, in accordance with American President Donald Trump’s peace scheme, further infuriating Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump officially

unveiled his scheme, the so-called deal of the century, in January at the White House with Netanyahu on his side, while Palestinian representatives were not invited.

The proposal meets Israel’s demands while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders, enshrining the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allowing the regime to annex settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

The highly provocative proposal, which further denies the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland, is also in total disregard of UN Security Council resolutions and opposed by the vast majority of the international community.

Palestinian officials have already threatened to sever bilateral agreements with Tel Aviv if it goes ahead with the annexation that will definitely undermine the two-state solution.

They say that the so-called peace scheme allows Israel to annex 30 to 40 percent of the West Bank, including the whole East Jerusalem al-Quds, which Palestinians regard as the capital of their future independent state.

Trump's proposal will only recognize the establishment of Palestinian state, with very limited independence, in the form of an archipelago connected by bridges and tunnels.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already said that Trump's deal “belongs to the dustbin of history.”