Erdogan slams U.S. decision to revoke Palestinian visas ahead of UN meet

AL-Monitor
Sep 2, 2025
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan holds a press conference at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan holds a press conference at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo — Piroschka Van De Wouw

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the United States should immediately revise its decision to revoke the visas of Palestinian officials and bar them from attending the United Nations meeting in New York this month.

Washington said last week it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to travel to New York, where several U.S. allies are set to recognise Palestine as a state.

The move "does not fit the United Nations' raison d'etre," Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from China, according to a readout from his office on Tuesday. "The decision needs to be urgently revised. The United Nations General Assembly exists for the issues of the world to be discussed and for solutions to be found."

"The Palestinian delegation not being at the General Assembly would only please Israel," he added. "What is expected from the United States is to say 'stop' to Israel's massacres, cruelty".

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)