Erdogan, Abbas discuss Palestine's statehood bid

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday in Cairo where the Turkish leader declared that it was time to raise the Palestinian flag at the United Nations. The meeting between Erdogan and Abbas came at a time when the Obama administration has been making a final effort to avert a diplomatic crisis over the Palestinian drive to win UN recognition as an independent state that threatens to provoke a regional meltdown and further isolate Israel, the top US ally in the Mideast. The administration's top two Mideast envoys were leaving Tuesday for Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to persuade the Palestinians to drop their UN plans and bring both sides back to long-stalled talks. At the same time, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns was visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week in part to seek Arab support for a still-undefined plan that could defuse the situation. In addition to Abbas, Erdogan yesterday also held talks with Amr Moussa, former secretary-general of the Arab League, and Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Moussa is a presidential candidate for elections expected to be held early next year, while El Baradei's name is also cited as a potential candidate. Erdogan also met yesterday with a delegation from Egypt's most powerful Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt's Coptic Christian leader Pope Shenouda III. After his widely praised call for democracy in the Arab world, Erdogan was given a more reserved reception by officials of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose old guard do not share the admiration of the group's younger generation for the Turkish leader.