ANKARA: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday condemned the Zionist entity’s ground operation in Lebanon and urged the United Nations and other international organizations to stop the Zionist entity without “wasting any more time”. “Whatever it does, (the Zionist entity) will be stopped sooner or later,” Erdogan told the Turkish parliament at the opening of the legislative year. “All state and international organizations, especially the UN, must stop (the Zionist entity) without wasting any more time,” he said.

Erdogan said “the terror and genocide” the Zionist entity had carried out in Gaza had reached Lebanon and warned if not stopped, the Zionist leadership would set its sights on Turkey. “I openly say that the (Zionist) leadership, acting with the delirium of the promised land and with a purely religious fanaticism, will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon,” Erdogan said, again comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler. “Just as Hitler, who saw himself in a giant mirror, was stopped, Netanyahu will be stopped in the same way,” he said.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said it had drawn up contingency plans to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon because “the security situation is likely to deteriorate”. “In coordination with relevant institutions, alternative plans have been prepared for the evacuation of our citizens by sea or air from Lebanon,” the ministry said.

Turkey is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon. The ministry also said guidelines for the evacuation of third countries’ citizens via Turkey have also been determined, adding that necessary preparations were underway in cooperation with nearly 20 countries that have requested support. — AFP