Washington denounces Erdogan's "anti-Semitic" remarks

Washington denounced Tuesday, May 18 the words of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan deemed

"anti-Semitic"

and called on to avoid

"inflammatory remarks that could incite even more violence"

in the Middle East, according to a spokesperson for American diplomacy.

“The United States strongly condemns President Ergodan's recent anti-Semitic remarks against the Jewish people,”

State Department Ned Price wrote in a statement.

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The Turkish president, who has set himself up as a defender of the Palestinian cause, criticized Israel on Monday for its strikes in the Gaza Strip, denouncing in a violent tirade

"murderers"

who

"kill children aged five or six"

.

"There is only sucking the blood that satisfies them"

, he had estimated.

Hostilities in Gaza erupted on May 10 with a barrage of rockets fired by the Palestinian movement Hamas into Israel after hundreds of Palestinian protesters were injured in clashes with Israeli police in occupied East Jerusalem.

At the origin of the demonstrations, the threat of forced eviction of Palestinian families for the benefit of Israeli settlers.

Since hostilities began on May 10, 200 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including at least 59 children, and more than 1,300 people have been injured.

Read also: Joe Biden's support for Israel increasingly divides Democrats

Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not spare his American counterpart Joe Biden on Monday, to whom he had launched:

"You are writing history with bloody hands"

.

Faced with the violent clashes between Hamas and Israel, Joe Biden had maintained the traditional support of the United States for the right of the Hebrew state

“to defend itself”

.

Relations between the new US administration and Turkey, which were strained from the outset, risk taking another blow, but the two leaders are due to meet on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels next month.

The UN Security Council has been blocked for eight days by Washington on the adoption of a simple declaration on the conflict, according to diplomatic sources.